Free gun training offered to 200 Utah teachers

(CBS/AP) SALT LAKE CITY - Gun rights advocates plan to offer gun training for 200 Utah teachers Thursday, saying that classroom teachers could stop school shootings by carrying concealed weapons.

The Utah Shooting Sports Council said it would waive its $50 fee for concealed-weapons training for the teachers. Instruction featuring plastic guns is set to begin at noon Thursday inside a conference room at Maverick Center, a hockey arena in the Salt Lake City suburb of West Valley.

It's an idea gaining traction in the aftermath of the Connecticut school shooting. In Ohio, the Buckeye Firearms Association said it was launching a test program in tactical firearms training for 24 teachers initially.

Educators say Utah legislators left them with no choice but to accept some guns in schools. State law forbids schools, districts or college campuses from trying to impose their own gun restrictions. Utah is among few states that let people carry licensed concealed weapons into public schools without exception, the National Conference of State Legislatures said in a 2012 compendium of state gun laws.

"Schools are some of the safest places in the world, but I think teachers understand that something has changed -- the sanctity of schools has changed," said Clark Aposhian, chairman of the Utah Shooting Sports Council, the state's leading gun lobby. "Mass shootings may still be rare, but that doesn't help you when the monster comes in."

Gun-rights advocates say teachers can act more quickly than law enforcement in the critical first few minutes to protect children from the kind of shooting that left 20 children and six adults dead Dec. 14 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. In Arizona, Attorney General Tom Horne has proposed amending state law to allow one educator in each school to carry a gun.

"We're not suggesting that teachers roam the halls" for an armed intruder, Aposhian said. "They should lock down the classroom. But a gun is one more option if the shooter" breaks into a classroom.

He said a major emphasis of the safety training is that people facing deadly threats should announce they have a gun and retreat or take cover before trying to shoot.

Utah educators say they would ban guns if they could and have no way of knowing how many teachers are armed. Gun-rights advocates estimate that 1 percent of Utah teachers or 240 are licensed to carry concealed weapons. It's not known how many pack guns at school.

"It's a terrible idea," said Carol Lear, a chief lawyer for the Utah Office of Education, who argues teachers could be overpowered for their guns or misfire or cause an accidental shooting. "It's a horrible, terrible, no-good, rotten idea."

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Utah Teachers Flock to Gun Training

The perception of schools as sanctuaries from violence has been "blown up" by recent events and some believe it's time for educators to literally take the situation into their own hands and carry guns.

"We've had this unwritten code, even among criminals, that schools are off limits. Those are our kids. You don't mess with that," Utah Shooting Sports Council (USSC) Chairman Clark Aposhian told ABCNews.com today.

"That perception has been blown away now," he said. "It's been shattered and if there's one thing that parents across the country are united on, it's that they are committed to and serious about protecting their kids."

Aposhian spoke shortly before opening a weapons training class for teachers and school employees that drew more than 200 Utah educators organized by the USSC, a leading gun lobby group that believes that teachers should be able to fight back when faced with an armed intruder.

"One firearm in the hands of one teacher could have made the difference at Sandy Hook or Columbine, but they weren't allowed to carry in those schools," Aposhian said.

The USSC is waiving its normal $50 training fee today for teachers who wish to attend. Aposhian said the 200 person course was filled to capacity and said he plans on holding another session for people he may have to turn away today.

INFOGRAPHIC: Gun in America: By The Numbers

"We trust these teachers to be with our kids for 8 to 10 hours a day every day," Aposhian said. "I don't think it's a far reach to think that we could think that they would act responsibly and with decorum in protecting their own lives and the lives of the kids under their care."

Gun Owners Give Back: LA Residents Return Guns After Newtown Tragedy Watch Video

The idea of armed teachers has been part of a fiery debate on gun control following the rampage at Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School that left 20 children and six adults dead on Dec. 14.

Utah is one of only a handful of states, including Oregon, Hawaii and New Hampshire, that allow people to carry licensed concealed weapons into public schools. It is not known how many Utah teachers carry guns in public schools because the records are not public.

But Aposhian said that he tells detractors that Utah has not had any school shootings or accidental shootings in the approximately 12 years the law has been in effect.

In Ohio, the Buckeye Firearms Association is launching a pilot armed teacher training program in which 24 teachers will be selected to attend a three-day training class.

Arizona's Attorney General Tom Horne has proposed a state law amendment that would allow one educator in each school to carry a gun.

During today's six-hour training session, the educators will be taught about gun safety, loading and unloading, manipulating the firearm, how to clear malfunctions, use of force laws and state and federal firearm laws.

The training sessions normally draw about 15 to 20 people, Aposhian said, but many of the teachers who have signed up for today have expressed strong feelings about attending the class.

"I think it runs the gamut from passive desire to get a permit because they thought about it here and there to a fervor given the recent events," Aposhian said. "Perhaps they've had an epiphany of sorts and realized that that sanctuary they work in, or at least the perceived sanctuary, isn't all that safe."

The Utah State Board of Education Chair Debra Roberts released the following statement today on the matter:

"The Utah State Board of Education expresses sympathy to all involved in the recent school shooting in Connecticut. In the face of this terrible tragedy, as schools move forward in taking measures to ensure the safety of students and school personnel, we urge caution and thoughtful consideration."

The statement noted that its schools have emergency plans to handle such situations.

Carol Lear, the board's director of school law and legislation, was more blunt about Aposhian's gun training, telling the Associated Press, "It's a terrible idea...It's a horrible, no-good, rotten idea."

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Russia's Putin signals he will sign U.S. adoption ban

MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin signaled on Thursday he would sign into law a bill barring Americans from adopting Russian children and sought to forestall criticism of the move by promising measures to better care for his country's orphans.

In televised comments, Putin tried to appeal to people's patriotism by suggesting that strong and responsible countries should take care of their own and lent his support to a bill that has further strained U.S.-Russia relations.

"There are probably many places in the world where living standards are higher than ours. So what, are we going to send all our children there? Maybe we should move there ourselves?" he said, with sarcasm.

Parliament gave its final approval on Wednesday to the bill, which would also introduce other measures in retaliation for new U.S. legislation which is designed to punish Russians accused of human rights violations.

For it to become law Putin needs to sign it.

"So far I see no reason not to sign it, although I have to review the final text and weigh everything," Putin said at a meeting of federal and regional officials that was shown live on the state's 24-hour news channel.

"I intend to sign not only the law ... but also a presidential decree that will modify the support mechanisms for orphaned children ... especially those who are in a difficult situation, by that I mean in poor health," Putin said.

Critics of the bill say the Russian authorities are playing political games with the lives of children, while the U.S. State Department repeated its "deep concern" over the measure.

"Since 1992 American families have welcomed more than 60,000 Russian children into their homes, and it is misguided to link the fate of children to unrelated political considerations," State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said in a statement.

Ventrell added that the United States was troubled by provisions in the bill that would restrict the ability of Russian civil society organizations to work with U.S. partners.

Children in Russia's crowded and troubled orphanage system - particularly those with serious illnesses or disabilities - will have less of a chance of finding homes, and of even surviving, if it becomes law, child rights advocates say.

They point to people like Jessica Long, who was given up shortly after birth by her parents in Siberia but was raised by adoptive parents in the United States and became a Paralympic swimming champion.

However, the Russian authorities point to the deaths of 19 Russian-born children adopted by American parents in the past decade, and lawmakers named the bill after a boy who died of heat stroke in Virginia after his adoptive father left him locked in a car for hours.

Putin reiterated Russian complaints that U.S. courts have been too lenient on parents in such cases, saying Russia has inadequate access to Russian-born children in the United States despite a bilateral agreement that entered into force on November 1.

NATIONAL IDENTITY

But Putin, who began a new six-year term in May and has searched for ways to unite the country during 13 years in power, suggested there were deeper motives for such a ban.

"For centuries, neither spiritual nor state leaders sent anyone abroad," he said, indicating he was not speaking specifically about Russia but about many societies.

"They always fight for their national identities - they gather themselves together in a fist, they fight for their language, culture," he said.

The bid to ban American adoptions plays on sensitivity in Russia about adoptions by foreigners, which skyrocketed as the social safety net unraveled with the 1991 Soviet collapse.

Families from the United States adopt more Russian children than those of any other country.

Putin had earlier described the Russian bill as an emotional but appropriate response to the Magnitsky Act, legislation signed by President Barack Obama this month as part of a law granting Russia "permanent normal trade relations" (PNTR) status.

The U.S. law imposes visa bans and asset freezes on Russians accused of human rights violations, including those linked to the death in a Moscow jail of Sergei Magnitsky, an anti-graft lawyer, in 2009.

The Russian bill would impose similar measures against Americans accused of violating the rights of Russian abroad and outlaw some U.S.-funded non-governmental groups.

(Reporting By Alexei Anishchuk; additional reporting by Andrew Quinn in Washington; Writing by Alissa de Carbonnel and Steve Gutterman; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Doina Chiacu)

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Oil prices decline on 'fiscal cliff' deal doubts

NEW YORK: Oil prices declined Thursday amid doubts that an 11th-hour deal on the "fiscal cliff" crisis could be reached by a rapidly approaching end-of-year deadline.

New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for February delivery, slipped 11 cents to settle at $90.87 a barrel.

Brent North Sea crude for February delivery dipped 27 cents to $110.80 a barrel in London trade.

With the clock ticking, the White House and Republican lawmakers have yet to reach a deal to keep the United States from falling off the so-called fiscal cliff, a combination of steep tax hikes and drastic spending cuts set to kick in next month.

President Barack Obama cut short his family Christmas break in Hawaii to return to Washington in a last-ditch attempt at reaching a compromise.

But the situation remained tense, with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, saying Thursday "it looks like" the US economy will hurtle over the fiscal cliff because House Speaker John Boehner and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell were stalling.

Crude oil prices were "being taken down on what appears to be the growing eventuality that the US is going to go over the fiscal cliff," said analyst John Kilduff of Again Capital.

There was "no doubt that the tax hikes and the spending cuts that will roll automatically will be a real drag on the economy for the us," he added.

Experts warn that going over the "fiscal cliff" could take the United States back into recession. And that could hurt oil demand in the world's biggest consumer of crude.

-AFP/ac

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Make the resolution: try a new lens for your camera

Want to experiment? Lensbaby Spark is a cheap special-effects lens for Nikon and Canon mount dSLRs.

The most popular reason nonprofessionals buy dSLRs or other types of interchangeable-lens cameras is because they want better photos or faster performance than a point-and-shoot can deliver; the power of manual controls and interchangeable lenses seem to be a secondary concern. Nevertheless, I'm still routinely surprised when someone hands me his dSLR and it's set to auto and equipped with a standard kit lens.

The best (and cheapest) way to advance your photography is to switch out of auto; here's a map for venturing into that new territory. But the next best -- and not-so-cheap -- way to inject some new life into your photography is to try a new lens. (Know nothing about lenses? Jump to Basic terminology)

There are a variety of reasons to invest in a second or third lens -- if you're up to your third, chances are you don't need any encouragement from me. The first, and possibly most compelling, is that you simply can't get the shots you want with the lens you have, usually because most kit lenses have a limited telephoto range. On the flip side, you might be routinely frustrated by the inability to get everything you want in the photo, which requires a shorter focal length. Another reason to expand your options: better low-light photography. A lens with a maximum aperture wider than the standard f3.5 of most kit lenses allows for more light so that you the camera doesn't have to boost the ISO sensitivity into the noisy range or lower the shutter speed to the point where camera shake becomes a problem. And you can't usually maintain even that maximum aperture as you zoom out. A faster lens also delivers a more attractive, out-of-focus background with less work (though you can achieve the effect with slow lenses as well). If you're shooting more video, you might want a lens that's easier to manually focus or that provides quieter autofocus. Or you might simply want to climb out of a photography rut.

Trying a new lens or doesn't necessarily mean a huge cash outlay; lens rental services like LensRentals.com and LensProToGo.com have become quite popular, and it's a terrific, cost-effective way to see what it's like to shoot with a great pro lens that you normally wouldn't have access to or to buy refurbished. For example, you can rent a $1,700 Canon 100-400 f4.5-5.6L IS lens from LensProTogo for two weeks for just $168.

If you're looking to extend your zoom range, then the obvious choice is to bracket your kit lens with complementary wide angle and/or telephoto zoom. The most popular second lens tends to be a telephoto zoom with a focal length that starts at the end of the range of the typical kit lens; for example, 55-200mm for APS-C cameras or 75-300mm for MFT.

However, I've found a nice, fast prime is the best way to shake things up. Primes -- fixed focal-length lenses -- force you to think differently about framing a scene. Zooms provide flexibility when you're traveling because they're a compact way of covering a lot of territory, but primes expand your vision: since they don't have to be adequate at a lot of different focal lengths, they tend to be sharper at their designated focal length than the equivalent in a zoom, even the not-so-good ones. Furthermore, you can find a fast prime like a 35mm f2 or 50mm f1.8 for a lot less money than a fast zoom, and you get access to wide apertures that aren't possible on your kit lens. You'll immediately notice a difference in the quality of your photos. One warning, though: once you've shot with a fast lens, even a mediocre one, it's tough to go back to the slow zoom.

• Aperture: The opening that determines the amount of light to let through, as enumerated by an f-stop, such as f2.0. (It's referred to as an iris in video.) Lower f-stop numbers denote wider apertures. A camera with a wide aperture for much of the focal range is referred to as fast; narrow-aperture lenses are called slow. Apertures are formed by a series of blades that open and close; the more blades, the rounder the opening (seven or more is best). The downside: The faster the lens, the harder it can be to autofocus.


• Depth-of-field (DOF): The proportion of the image in front of and behind the subject that is sharp. When a photo has lots of background blur it displays shallow DOF. All things being equal -- notably sensor size and distance from subject -- the lower the f-number the shallower the DOF.


• Bokeh: The shape of out-of-focus highlights; rounder and smoother is usually considered better, unless you're going for an effect. Cheaper lenses are more likely to produce bokeh with concentric rings called Airy disks or rings (more detail here, for the mathematically inclined), though physics dictates that every lens has a point at which they'll occur.


• Focal length: Technically, the physical distance between the beginning of the optical path and the imaging plane (in this case, the sensor). However, the more informative spec is angle of view -- the degree of the scene that the lens covers -- which is dependent upon the size of the imaging plane. So as a convention everyone's adopted a 35mm frame of film as a standard size on which to base angle of view, and translates the physical focal length into the the focal length that produces the equivalent angle of view on a 35mm (full frame) camera by multiplying by a crop factor.
  
  • Ultrawide angle (less than 18mm) is good for very large scenes where lens distortion adds rather than detracts from the appeal.
  
  
  • Wide-angle (around 18mm to 30mm) is good for group shots, landscapes, and street photography
  
  
  • 
    Normal (about 30mm to 70mm) is good for portraits and snapshots
  
  
  • 
    Telephoto (about 70mm to 300mm) is good for portraits and sports
  
  
  • 
    Super telephoto (greater than 300mm) is good for sports, wildlife and stalking
  
  


• Lens mount: The place where a lens attaches to the camera. A lens must adhere to various specifications in order to be compatible with a camera -- the two most important specs that define a mount are size (so that they can match physically) and connectors (so that it can talk to the camera). Most mounts have third-party adapters that allow you to attach an incompatible lens, though there are frequently trade-offs like no autofocus, inability to work with the electronic metering system, or vignetting (darkness around the edges of the frame).

Manufacturer	Mount	Sensor size/crop factor
Canon	EF EF-S EF-M	full-frame/1.0x APS-C/1.6x APS-C mirrorless/1.6x
Nikon	FX DX CX	full-frame/1.0x APS-C/1.5x CX mirrorless/2.7x
Sony	A E	Both full frame/1.0x and APS-C/1.5x Mirrorless APS-C/1.5x
Pentax	K	Both full frame/1.0x and APS-C/1.5x
Olympus and Panasonic	Micro Four Thirds (MFT)	MFT/2.0x
Samsung	NX	APS-C/1.5x

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Fmr. President Bush battling "stubborn" fever

A "stubborn" fever that kept former President George H.W. Bush in a hospital over Christmas has gotten worse, and doctors have put him on a liquids-only diet, his spokesman said Wednesday, describing Bush's condition as guarded to CBS News.

Jim McGrath, Bush's spokesman in Houston, had said earlier in the day that the fever had gone away, but he later corrected himself.

"It's an elevated fever, so it's actually gone up in the last day or two," McGrath told The Associated Press. "It's a stubborn fever that won't go away."

Doctors at Methodist Hospital in Houston have run tests and are treating the fever with Tylenol, but they still haven't nailed down a cause, McGrath said. Doctors also have put Bush on a liquid diet, though McGrath could not say why.

The bronchitis-like cough that initially brought Bush to the hospital on Nov. 23 has improved, McGrath said. The 88-year-old is now coughing about once a day, he said.

Bush was visited on Christmas by his wife, Barbara, his son, Neil, and Neil's wife, Maria, and a grandson, McGrath said. Bush's daughter, Dorothy, will arrive Wednesday in Houston from Bethesda, Md. The 41st president has also been visited twice by his sons, George W. Bush, the 43rd president, and Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida.

Bush and his wife live in Houston during the winter and spend their summers at a home in Kennebunkport, Maine.

The former president was a naval aviator in World War II - at one point the youngest in the Navy - and was shot down over the Pacific. He achieved notoriety in retirement for skydiving on at least three of his birthdays since leaving the White House in 1992.

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Weather Death Toll Up to 6 as Storm Churns North

A killer Christmas storm is churning its way north leaving hundreds of thousands without power and snarling travel plans for people trying to get home after the holiday.

Six people have died, mostly in weather related car crashes, as the South was hammered by as many as 34 tornadoes and a lethal coating of sleet and snow that spread from the South into the Midwest.

Over 280,000 customers are without across the South today with 100,000 without power in Little Rock, Ark. alone.

The wild weather isn't over. Eighteen states from Tennessee to Maine are under winter storm warnings, blizzard warnings and advisories. Between one and two feet of snow is expected from Indianapolis to Cleveland to Syracuse, N.Y. and into Maine.

The number of flight cancellations nationwide is growing by the hour on one of the busiest travel days of the holiday season. But by 2 p.m. more than 1,000 flights were canceled, according to FlightAware.com.

"Traveling will definitely be affected as people go home for the holidays," Bob Oravec, lead forecaster for the National Weather Service, told ABC News. "Anywhere from the Mississippi Valley into the Ohio Valley and the Northeast, there's definitely going to be travel issues as we have heavy snow and some very high winds."

Flights were disrupted in traffic hubs like Indianapolis International Airport because of heavy snowfall as well as Dallas/Fort Worth which was hit with five inches of snow on Christmas, a rarity for the city.

PHOTOS: Christmas Storms

Joe Harpring/The Republic/AP Photo

Cancellations and delays are expected to ripple into the Northeast today where high winds, flooding and more than a foot of snow in some areas is expected.

Heavy winds could further complicate matters for travelers. According to Flightaware.com, fliers are experiencing delays up to an hour in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City and Washington, D.C.

Some airlines are issuing flexible travel policies for travelers holding airline tickets today and tomorrow. Delta Airlines is allowing travelers to change their flights through Jan. 2 with no penalty. United Airlines has enacted a similar policy, as has Southwest. Policies vary slightly from airline to airline, travelers should check their carrier's web site for specifics. JetBlue, which has a major presence in New York, has not yet issued a policy but warned travelers via its web site to be prepared for delays.

Wild Holiday Weather

Severe weather on Christmas day spawned 34 tornado reports from Texas to Alabama.

In Mobile, Ala., a wide funnel cloud was barreled across the city as lightning flashed inside like giant Christmas ornaments.

The punishing winds mangled Mobile's graceful ante-bellum homes, and today, dazed residents are picking through debris while rescue crews search for people trapped in the rubble.

Teresa Mason told ABC News that she and her boyfriend panicked when they saw the tornado heading toward them in Stone County, in southern Mississippi, but she says they were actually saved when a tree fell onto the truck.

"[We] got in the truck and made it out there to the road. And that's when the tornado was over us. And it started jerking us and spinning us, "she said."This tree got us in the truck and kept us from being sucked up into the tornado."

The last time a number of tornadoes hit the Gulf Coast area around Christmas Day was in 2009, when 22 tornadoes struck on Christmas Eve morning, National Weather Service spokesman Chris Vaccaro told ABC News.

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Syria to discuss Brahimi peace proposals with Russia

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sent a senior diplomat to Moscow on Wednesday to discuss proposals to end the conflict convulsing his country made by international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, Syrian and Lebanese sources said.

Brahimi, who saw Assad on Monday and is planning to hold a series of meetings with Syrian officials and dissidents in Damascus this week, is trying to broker a peaceful transfer of power, but has disclosed little about how this might be done.

More than 44,000 Syrians have been killed in a revolt against four decades of Assad family rule, a conflict that began with peaceful protests but which has descended into civil war.

Past peace efforts have floundered, with world powers divided over what has become an increasingly sectarian struggle between mostly Sunni Muslim rebels and Assad's security forces, drawn primarily from his Shi'ite-rooted Alawite minority.

Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Makdad flew to Moscow to discuss the details of the talks with Brahimi, said a Syrian security source, who would not say if a deal was in the works.

However, a Lebanese official close to Damascus said Makdad had been sent to seek Russian advice on a possible agreement.

He said Syrian officials were upbeat after talks with Brahimi, the U.N.-Arab League envoy, who met Foreign Minister Walid Moualem on Tuesday a day after his session with Assad, but who has not outlined his ideas in public.

"There is a new mood now and something good is happening," the official said, asking not to be named. He gave no details.

Russia, which has given Assad diplomatic and military aid to help him weather the 21-month-old uprising, has said it is not protecting him, but has fiercely criticized any foreign backing for rebels and, with China, has blocked U.N. Security Council action on Syria.

"ASSAD CANNOT STAY"

A Russian Foreign Ministry source said Makdad and an aide would meet Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Mikhail Bogdanov, the Kremlin's special envoy for Middle East affairs, on Thursday, but did not disclose the nature of the talks.

On Saturday, Lavrov said Syria's civil war had reached a stalemate, saying international efforts to get Assad to quit would fail. Bogdanov had earlier acknowledged that Syrian rebels were gaining ground and might win.

Given the scale of the bloodshed and destruction, Assad's opponents insist the Syrian president must go.

Moaz Alkhatib, head of the internationally-recognized Syrian National Coalition opposition, has criticized any notion of a transitional government in which Assad would stay on as a figurehead president stripped of real powers.

Comments on Alkhatib's Facebook page on Monday suggested that the opposition believed this was one of Brahimi's ideas.

"The government and its president cannot stay in power, with or without their powers," Alkhatib wrote, saying his Coalition had told Brahimi it rejected any such solution.

While Brahimi was working to bridge the vast gaps between Assad and his foes, fighting raged across the country and a senior Syrian military officer defected to the rebels.

Syrian army shelling killed about 20 people, at least eight of them children, in the northern province of Raqqa, a video posted by opposition campaigners showed.

The video, published by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, showed rows of blood-stained bodies laid out on blankets. The sound of crying relatives could be heard in the background.

The shelling hit the province's al-Qahtania village, but it was unclear when the attack had occurred.

STRATEGIC BASE

Rebels relaunched their assault on the Wadi Deif military base in the northwestern province of Idlib, in a battle for a major army compound and fuel storage and distribution point.

Activist Ahmed Kaddour said rebels were firing mortars and had attacked the base with a vehicle rigged with explosives.

The British-based Observatory, which uses a network of contacts in Syria to monitor the conflict, said a rebel commander was among several people killed in Wednesday's fighting, which it said was among the heaviest for months.

The military used artillery and air strikes to try to hold back rebels assaulting Wadi Deif and the town of Morek in Hama province further south. In one air raid, several rockets fell near a field hospital in the town of Saraqeb, in Idlib province, wounding several people, the Observatory said.

As violence has intensified in recent weeks, daily death tolls have climbed. The Observatory reported at least 190 had been killed across the country on Tuesday alone.

The head of Syria's military police changed sides and declared allegiance to the anti-Assad revolt.

"I am General Abdelaziz Jassim al-Shalal, head of the military police. I have defected because of the deviation of the army from its primary duty of protecting the country and its transformation into gangs of killing and destruction," the officer said in a video published on YouTube.

A Syrian security source confirmed the defection, but said Shalal was near retirement and had only defected to "play hero".

Syrian Interior Minister Mohammed Ibrahim al-Shaar left Lebanon for Damascus after being treated in Beirut for wounds sustained in a rebel bomb attack this month.

(Additional reporting by Laila Bassam; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

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Pakistan to mark five years since Bhutto murder

LARKANA, Pakistan: Pakistan Thursday marks the fifth anniversary of the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, with her son expected to launch his political career with a speech in the family's ancestral home town.

Bhutto, twice elected prime minister, was killed in a gun and suicide attack after an election rally in Rawalpindi, the headquarters of Pakistan's army, on December 27, 2007. No one has ever been convicted of her murder.

Thousands are expected to gather at the Bhutto family mausoleum at Larkana in the southern province of Sindh and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son of Benazir and of President Asif Ali Zardari, is to make his first major public speech.

The Bhutto family has been a force in Pakistani politics for almost all of the country's 65-year history.

Benazir's father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto led the country from 1971 until he was ousted in a military coup in 1977. He was hanged in 1979 after being convicted of authorising the murder of a political opponent.

With a general election due in the spring, analysts say the ruling Pakistan People's Party (PPP) is eager to introduce a third generation of the dynasty to the public.

"It appears to be the formal launching of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari into politics," political analyst Hasan Askari told AFP.

"Bilawal has symbolic value in the Bhutto family and Zardari would like this link to be used as symbolism in the election."

As head of state President Zardari, who came to power in elections held a month after his wife's murder, is barred from leading the PPP election campaign. He is also hugely unpopular, tainted by years of corruption allegations.

Though the 24-year-old Bilawal will be too young to stand if elections go ahead as expected in the spring -- the lower age limit is 25 -- Askari said he could provide a fresh new figurehead for the PPP campaign.

Bilawal, co-chairman of the PPP with his father, in May accused former military ruler Pervez Musharraf of "murdering" his mother by deliberately sabotaging her security.

A UN report in 2010 also said the murder could have been prevented and accused Musharraf's government of failing to protect Bhutto properly.

The Musharraf regime blamed the assassination on Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who denied any involvement and was killed in a US drone attack in August 2009.

There has been a surge in terror attacks in Pakistan in the past weeks. Brigadier Saad Khan, a former officer with the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency, warned the Taliban may continue their campaign with an attack on events marking the anniversary.

-AFP/ac

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Samsung plans to ship half a billion handsets in 2013

Samsung has big plans for 2013.

(Credit:
Josh Miller/CNET)

This year has been a big year for Samsung, and it looks like the good times will continue well into 2013.

According to The Korea Times, the phone manufacturer expects itself to ship over half a billion handsets -- or 510 million to be exact -- next year.

In 2012 alone, Samsung shipped an estimated 420 million devices. If we go by next year's projections, it's aiming for a 20 percent jump in devices shipped.

Of the 510 million devices planned, 390 million units are expected to be smartphones while the remaining 120 million will be feature phones.

Also in Samsung's plans are more Microsoft
Windows 8 handsets, and an executive at Samsung's telecommunications department noted the high user demand for LTE devices.

Despite its ongoing patent battle with Apple, which topped CNET's list of 2012's biggest tech stories, Samsung has managed to be a huge success both in the U.S. and overseas, thanks to its successful Galaxy line of phones,
tablets, and even 'phablets.' Do you guys think Samsung has what it takes to fulfill its big projections for next year?

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