Iran nuclear talks end on upbeat note; more in Nov

GENEVA (AP) — Nuclear talks between Iran and six world powers ended on an upbeat note Wednesday, with top Western and Iranian negotiators announcing a follow-up round early next month while speaking of significant progress in efforts to reduce fears that Tehran may be seeking atomic arms.

Despite abandoning the pessimistic tone of previous meetings, however, negotiators refused to reveal details on what — if any — concessions Iran offered. That gives potential traction to skeptics who can claim the conference was aimed more at building trust and silencing critics at home than in resolving the thorny issues that have blocked progress over a decade of talks.

Iran denies suspicions that it wants nuclear arms and has resisted incentives and tough penalties aimed at curbing its atomic activities. But since reformist Iranian President Hassan Rouhani took office in August, senior officials from Rouhani on down have pledged to meet international concerns in exchange for an easing of crippling economic sanctions.

The post-meeting optimism expressed by senior Western and Iranian officials suggested that Tehran had put forward serious proposals at the two-day talks. Catherine Ashton, the EU's top diplomat, spoke of "a very intensive and, I think, a very important meeting," while Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif said he hoped for "the beginning of a new phase" between his country and some of its most vehement critics.

"I believe that both sides are serious about finding a resolution, that both sides want to find common ground," Zarif said. "And I hope that my counterparts ... will also take back home the fact that Iran is interested in resolving this issue."

Zarif led the Iranian delegation while Ashton convened the talks. Past sessions were often punctuated by months-long pauses as the two sides tried to find common ground. Ashton said, however, that the negotiations would reconvene Nov. 7-8 in Geneva.

A statement read by Ashton to reporters on behalf of both sides said the talks were "substantive and forward looking."

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, Moscow's chief negotiator, was more sparing with praise, describing the meeting as "better than many people thought, but worse than what we hoped for."

A senior U.S. official said that while the six powers "got more today than we've ever gotten, there's a whole lot more that we need to get and probably more that Iran wants to get from us. ... There's a lot of detail that needs to be unpacked." The official demanded anonymity as a condition for attendance at a background briefing.

A key six-power concern is enrichment, which can create both reactor fuel and weapons-grade material suitable for a nuclear bomb. Iran currently runs over 10,000 centrifuges which have created tons of fuel-grade material that can be further enriched to arm nuclear warheads. That's a relatively slow process with such reactor-grade material.

But Tehran also has nearly 440 pounds (200 kilograms) of higher-enriched uranium in a form that can be turned into weapons much more quickly. Experts say 550 pounds (250 kilograms) of 20 percent-enriched uranium are needed to produce a single warhead.

With no details disclosed, it was unclear whether Iran had moved toward meeting any of the six-power demands left from the last round of talks in April. These include:

—suspension of enrichment above reactor fuel-grade levels

— freezing of enrichment at an underground bunker believed impervious to airstrikes

— no new centrifuge installations

— placing uranium stockpiles under strict U.N. supervision and shipping out most of the higher-enriched uranium closest to weapons-grade.

In exchange, the six — the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — had offered some sanctions relief, but not on oil exports, Iran's main cash cow.

Iranian state TV, which closely reflects government views, said Tehran offered to discuss uranium enrichment levels. The report also said Iran proposed adopting the additional protocols of the U.N.'s nuclear treaty — effectively opening its nuclear facilities to wider inspection and monitoring — if the West recognizes Iran's right to enrich uranium.

But Zarif said implementing the protocols was not an issue "at this stage."

Even if the meeting achieved limited progress, the United States and Iran remain vulnerable to powerful forces back home that may scuttle the process without proof they are delivering on widely diverging goals. Iranian hard-liners want significant sanctions relief, while many members of the U.S. Congress want concrete reduction of the perceived Iranian nuclear threat.

The U.S. Senate's Banking Committee is expected to take up a new package of restrictive measures in the coming weeks, similar to a bill passed by the House of Representatives in July. The House's legislation blacklisted Iran's mining and construction sectors, and committed the United States to the goal of eliminating all Iranian petroleum exports worldwide by 2015. A large majority of senators already have spoken out in favor of the new sanctions.

Sen. Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, introduced a Senate resolution Wednesday calling for additional sanctions on Iran.

"No one should be impressed by what Iran appears to have brought to the table in Geneva," Rubio said. "Tehran has broken its word far too many times to be trusted. Due to its complete disregard for previous international agreements, we must take a firm stand in all negotiations regarding the nuclear capabilities Iran is permitted to retain."

Describing the Iranian overture as a "proposed approach," not a proposal, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that she was not aware of any decision the Obama administration had made about whether or not to continue to ask Congress to hold off on placing additional sanctions on Iran until after the second round of talks convenes in early November.

For Iran, any proposed nuclear deal must pass through a potentially difficult review by Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard, whose vast portfolio includes oversight of nuclear facilities. Guard commanders have been openly resistant to Rouhani's overtures to Washington and would likely oppose provisions that would appear to reduce their influence or open military sites to greater international inspection.

For the moment, Guard leaders have been appeased somewhat by supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei's suggestion that there are time limits — perhaps six months — on attempts to move forward on a nuclear deal with the West. If no progress is shown, hard-liners are likely to increase their demands to end Rouhani's bid.

___

Associated Press writers Brian Murphy in Dubai and Deb Riechmann and Bradley Klapper in Washington contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iran-nuclear-talks-end-upbeat-note-more-nov-214641531--finance.html
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Innovation: A Portable Generator Charges Devices With Fire

The FlameStower can charge USB-powered devices with fire.

Courtesy of FlameStower

The FlameStower can charge USB-powered devices with fire.

Courtesy of FlameStower

In our Weekly Innovation blog series, we explore an interesting idea, design or product that you may not have heard of yet. Do you have an innovation to share? Use this quick form to send it to us.

Hikers and campers can now keep their cameras charged with FlameStower, which uses heat from a campfire, stove or even candles to charge any device powered by a USB connection. While this can seem superfluous — powering up while getting away from it all — creators Andrew Byrnes and Adam Kell says the device can also bring power to people in developing countries where wireless technology has leapfrogged others, places where people have cellphones but not electricity.

Byrnes and Kell were both studying materials science at Stanford University and at first thought about a generator wired to a toaster, but they quickly dismissed that idea. They spoke to a business school professor, who told them something that's been their guiding principle since — build something that can cook a pot of rice and charge a cellphone at the same time.

The technology is fairly simple. The FlameStower has a blade that extends out over the fire, while the other end is cooled by a reservoir of water. That means one part of the blade is hotter than the other. The temperature difference generates electricity, and semiconductors amplify the voltage to a useful amount. It gives you the same charge as connecting your phone to a laptop. The Mars Curiosity Rover uses the same technology, though its heat source comes from decaying radioactive materials.

This phenomenon of heat to electricity is called the Seebeck effect, and it doesn't generate a lot of energy, which means it wasn't that useful until people started walking around with cameras and smartphones.

"Now you have these tools that are insanely powerful, and increasingly are stingy on their energy use, so that value of the low amount of electricity is getting higher," Byrnes says.

He and Kell want to bring the FlameStower not only to stores in the U.S. but to developing countries as well. Kell recently returned from a trip to rural Kenya and Ethiopia to refine the FlameStower for users there, because around 65 percent of people in Africa have cellphones, but only 42 percent have electricity.

"[The cellphone] has been the first technology that people in rural villages are actually buying," Kell says.

Kell says products sold in developing countries are usually made to be cheaper than their counterparts in the U.S., with the exception of energy, which is much more expensive and less reliable.

Kell and Byrnes aren't the only people to come up with something like this. The BioLite CampStove and PowerPot are both pots that will charge a device and cook your food or boil water at the same time. But Kell says they weren't as successful in developing countries because people there often want to use their own pots, so the FlameStower founders made something that can work on any stove or fire.

At the moment a FlameStower costs $80, and the project is being funded on Kickstarter until late October.

Alan Yu is a Kroc fellow at NPR.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/10/15/234737102/innovation-a-portable-generator-charges-devices-with-fire?ft=1&f=1003
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Are We Moving To A World With More Online Surveillance?

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was angered by reports that the National Security Agency was spying on her. She has called for giving individual countries greater control over the Internet.

Getty Images

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was angered by reports that the National Security Agency was spying on her. She has called for giving individual countries greater control over the Internet.

Getty Images

Many governments around the world have expressed outrage over the National Security Agency's use of the Internet as a spying platform. But the possible response may have an unforeseen consequence: It may actually lead to more online surveillance, according to Internet experts.

Some governments, led most recently by Brazil, have reacted to recent disclosures about NSA surveillance by proposing a redesign of Internet architecture. The goal would be to give governments more control over how the Internet operates within their own borders.

But privacy advocates warn that some of the changes under consideration could actually undermine Internet freedom, not strengthen it.

"Unfortunately, there is enormous blowback," says Bruce Schneier, a cybersecurity expert who has worked closely with Britain's Guardian newspaper in reporting on NSA surveillance activities.

Schneier says some of those who advocate changes in Internet governance are acting unwisely, though he blames the NSA for having undermined global confidence in the Internet and prompting ill-advised reform moves.

"The NSA's actions embolden these people to say, 'We need more sovereign control,' " Schneier says. "This is bad. We really need a global Internet."

An Absence Of Government Control

Those who have closely followed the Internet, such as Milton Mueller of Syracuse University, say its free and open character is due largely to the absence of government control.

"The reason the Internet worked, the reason it created this massive amount of innovation, is precisely because, for a brief period of about 10 years, it just completely overcame the telecommunications system of national boundaries," Mueller says. "It created a virtual space that was completely interconnected and globalized, and governments had to react to that after the fact."

To the extent one country has dominated the Internet, it's been the United States. The only organization with a significant Internet governance function, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), was set up by the United States. Also, the companies most associated with the Internet around the world, such as Microsoft, Google and Facebook, are U.S. firms.

Prior to the uproar over NSA surveillance on the Internet, an argument could be made that American control of the Internet had served the cause of Internet freedom.

"In the area of free speech, I think it's been a great thing that the United States has had this hugely disproportionate role in providing the Internet's infrastructure," says Andrew McLaughlin, an Internet entrepreneur and formerly the deputy chief technology officer for the United States. "Our First Amendment traditions have meant that freedom of speech and freedom of expression have prevailed and really characterized the Internet globally."

Suspicion Of American Surveillance

But McLaughlin sees that record now in jeopardy.

"We've kind of blown it," he says. "The global fear and suspicion about American surveillance is pushing countries to centralize their [Internet] infrastructures and get the U.S. out of the picture. Ultimately, I think that will have negative consequences for free speech as well as for protection of privacy."

Some of the countries pushing for more international control over the Internet are ones that were never all that supportive of Internet freedom, like Russia and China. But they've now been joined by countries like Brazil, whose president, Dilma Rousseff, was furious when she read reports that she was herself an NSA target.

Speaking at the United Nations last month, Rousseff called for a new "multilateral framework" for Internet governance and new measures "to ensure the effective protection of data that travel through the web."

At home, Rousseff has suggested that Brazil partially disconnect from U.S.-based parts of the Internet and take steps to keep Brazilians' online data stored in Brazil, supposedly out of the NSA's reach.

But Schneier says such moves would lead to "increased Balkanization" of the Internet.

One indication of the discontent with the dominant U.S. role on the Internet came at a meeting in Uruguay last week. Directors of major Internet organizations, including ICANN, endorsed a call for all governments to be treated equally in Internet governance.

The ICANN president, Fadi Chehade, actually praised Rousseff for her "leadership" and personally backed her effort to challenge the United States on Internet governance issues.

In Europe, policymakers have discussed the possibility of writing new rules for how information can flow around the world. Some proposals would introduce restrictions on how U.S. companies like Google can operate overseas.

Mueller, who teaches at Syracuse University's School of Information Studies, says such a move would be costly.

"Is it practical in the sense that you can create regulations that block off trade in these information services? Yeah, you can do that," Mueller says. "There will be massive sacrifices of economic efficiency. But you can introduce barriers, definitely."

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2013/10/16/232181204/are-we-moving-to-a-world-with-more-online-surveillance?ft=1&f=1049
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Path cuts 20 percent of staff, says layoffs will 'support continued innovation'

Apparently Path's subscription model hasn't been successful in turning things around for the social network. Valleywag is reporting that the company today laid off 13 employees, representing 20 percent of its entire staff. Addressing the layoffs, a spokesperson told Valleywag, "We're working to realign the company to support continued innovation and Path 4.0." A Path spokesperson has since told The Verge that no engineers were included in the staff reduction and that the firings were sprinkled across the company. Valleywag's report goes on to say that Path is still in search of a lead investor for another round of funding for the social app. The company insists its fortunes are good, pointing to its community of 20 million users as evidence of sustained growth. But the company has struggled to find a reliable path to profitability.

Last month, Path introduced subscriptions for its mobile applications, charging users $1.99 for a month on Android, $4.99 for three months on iOS, and $14.99 for a year covering both platforms. That premium membership promised benefits like new stickers and photo filters; the company simultaneously tightened up its privacy and sharing settings. But Path's reputation has also been marred by spam and robocall controversies. As we wrote in September, Path's goal with its recent update was to get its users sharing more while spending more. Today's layoffs would imply it's having some difficulty executing on that strategy.

Source: http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/15/4842360/path-cuts-20-percent-of-staff
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Geraldine Ferraro: Paving the Way: Hamptons Review

The Bottom Line

Celebratory biography cements Ferraro's place as a trailblazer.

Venue

Hamptons International Film Festival

Director

Donna Zaccaro

An encomium for the first woman to run on a major party's ticket for the White House, Geraldine Ferraro: Paving the Way is the kind of admiring doc one would expect from a director, Donna Zaccaro, who is the late vice presidential candidate's daughter. Recapping an impressive career almost 30 years after Ferraro and Walter Mondale lost to Ronald Reagan and George Bush, the enjoyable film makes a fine point of entry for younger viewers who might not have understood the tributes paid upon Ferraro's death in 2011; though its big-screen career may be limited to fests, a video release would be welcomed by students of politics and gender equality.

Interviewed in the final months of her years-long battle with cancer, Ferraro shows no evidence of the toll the disease had taken. She recounts enough details of her youth to make her barrier-breaking adult career seem preordained: Named for an older brother who died before she was born, she was raised by a mother who owned a family business and insisted there was nothing boys could do that young Gerry couldn't.

After agreeing to be a mostly stay-at-home mom until her children were all in school full-time, Ferraro used her legal education to get a job in the Queens County District Attorney's office. She made an impression with a new special victims unit for cases involving rape and domestic violence, and soon ran for Congress under the cheeky slogan "Finally … a tough Democrat."

Clips of her in public settings depict a remarkable communicator whose straight talk and logic-driven arguments would be welcome on the current political scene; as colleagues recall with admiration, she also had a realistic view of the compromise-based political process that young idealists often lack. ("She's one of us," Tip O'Neill is said to have remarked admiringly.) Interviews with other women who made up the House's tiny female contingent convey a spirit of solidarity while depicting her as a rising star.

Mondale acknowledges her talents, recalling that he had no interest in selecting a "token female" as his running mate. Footage from the national convention in which he presented her to the world is effervescent, and for a time polls suggested they actually might unseat the incumbents.

That didn't happen, of course. Paving the Way shows how hard the candidate worked for her team while depicting the campaign against her as both willfully dishonest and slanted in ways that would become familiar to female politicians in decades to come. (Republican campaign consultant Ed Rollins admits "there was a covert operation" to get Ferraro, spearheaded by an irate Nancy Reagan.)

Though the movie never locates interviewees who have anything critical to say about Ferraro in the present tense, it takes pains to include some high-profile ones who opposed her at the time: Between visits with Bill and Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright and other high-profile supporters, we sit couchside as George H. W. and Barbara Bush recall how, once the election was over, Bush and Ferraro forgot their heated debate and became good friends.

Production: Dazzling Media

Director: Donna Zaccaro

Producers: Donna Zaccaro, Janice DeRosa, Andrew Morreale

Director of photography: Jim Sicile

Editor: Andrew Morreale

Sales: The Film Sales Company

No rating, 86 minutes

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thr/reviews/film/~3/sikmL_hA7sM/geraldine-ferraro-paving-way-hamptons-648558
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The Surprising Story of 'Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an'

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Author Denise Spellberg's book draws parallels between the beliefs of the founding father and religious tolerance in the United States today.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NprProgramsATC/~3/G6qeX-IEir0/the-surprising-story-of-thomas-jeffersons-quran
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Budget rift pushes Washington to the brink

Washington (AFP) - Washington's risky game of political brinkmanship neared crisis point Tuesday, with no deal yet nailed down to avoid a catastrophic US debt default, just 36 hours before a crucial deadline.

Despite global fears that the US government could run out of money to pay its bills on Thursday, the rift cleaving US politics and a fight for the soul of the Republican Party thwarted compromise.

Hopes a nascent deal between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate would open the way to resolve a fight over raising the US borrowing limit and reopening government proved over optimistic.

House Republican leaders, seeking to appease the conservative Tea Party faction, decided to try to pass their own bill, seeking to impose constraints on President Barack Obama's health care law.

The White House immediately struck back, rejecting the gambit as tantamount to demanding a "ransom" and renewed Obama's demand that the $16.7 trillion debt cap be raised without conditions.

The maneuvering left the way out of the deepest political crisis of the Obama era murky at best.

If no deal is reached by midnight on Wednesday, the US Treasury will find itself unable to borrow more money, and since its obligations will outweigh tax revenue, could begin to default on its obligations.

This would send economic shockwaves around the world.

Major powers like China and Japan are already alarmed at the implications if US Treasuries -- seen as the safest bedrock investment in the world -- lose their luster.

The House Republican plan is similar to a Senate escape bill in that it would fund government through January 15 while extending the debt ceiling to February 7, according to Congressman Darrell Issa.

But the House will include provisions to delay medical device tax that helps fund Obamacare and would remove health care subsidies for congressional aides and politicians.

"We're talking to our members on both sides of the aisle to try to find a way to move forward today," Republican House Speaker John Boehner said.

But the White House rejected the House move, signaling that if it comes to a vote minority Democrats would vote against, leaving Boehner with the long-shot task of uniting almost his entire caucus -- including the restive Tea Party -- behind the plan.

Democrats are likely banking on a plan with fewer conditions being passed by the Senate ahead of the debt default deadline before climbing on board a compromise.

"The President has said repeatedly that Members of Congress don’t get to demand ransom for fulfilling their basic responsibilities to pass a budget and pay the nation’s bills," said Amy Brundage, a White House spokeswoman.

"Unfortunately, the latest proposal from House Republicans does just that in a partisan attempt to appease a small group of Tea Party Republicans who forced the government shutdown in the first place."

Senate Democratic Majority leader Harry Reid vented fury at the latest House maneuver, saying they undermined the Senate compromise bid.

"Let's be clear: the House legislation will not pass the Senate," Reid said.

And, in an unusually public attack on Boehner, he accused the House speaker of appeasing a small fringe of radical conservatives at the expense of America's interests, and all just to keep his job.

"I am very disappointed with John Boehner who would once again try to preserve his role at the expense of the country," he said.

Senate Republicans were to convene to review a compromise plan being hammered out between Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Investors endured a roller coaster day on the markets due to the fast moving political developments.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down nearly 100 points at one point, but recouped its losses by mid-morning trade, only to head on a downward track again.

China and Japan -- which between them hold more than $2.4 trillion of US debt -- have urged Washington to get its house in order.

Japan's Finance Minister Taro Aso said many US politicians "don't seem to understand well the magnitude of the international impact this problem could have".

"We demand," said China's Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao in Beijing, "that the US side, as the issuing country of the major reserve currency and the largest economy in the world . . . should undertake its due responsibility. That is to uphold and develop the stability of international financial markets."

China and Japan between them hold more than $2.4 trillion in US debt.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/senate-leader-confident-us-debt-ceiling-deal-week-182824487.html
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