Syrian tanks enter northern town, Homs pounded again

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian forces pounded the battered city of Homs with tank and mortar fire and troops pummeled several other rebel strongholds on Saturday, leaving at least 24 dead, opposition activists said.

With the bloodshed showing no signs of abating, the U.N.-Arab League peace envoy for Syria, Kofi Annan, flew to Moscow, seeking Russian backing for his efforts to secure a ceasefire.

Western and Arab states want Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to stand down but Russia, a long-time ally of Syria, has put the onus on the armed rebels and their foreign backers to make the first move.

In a statement ahead of Sunday's meeting between Annan and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the Kremlin said it would be hard to enforce a halt to the violence "until external armed and political support of the opposition is terminated".

More than a year after the start of the uprising against Assad, the prospect of a negotiated peace seemed more remote than ever, with clashes reported in numerous locations.

At least 10 people were killed by explosions and sniper fire in Homs, the epicenter of the anti-Assad revolt, said activists who accused Syrian forces of shelling residential areas in the centre of the city indiscriminately.

"The shelling started like it does every morning, for no reason. They are using mortar and tank fire on many neighborhoods of old Homs," an activist in Homs's Bab Sbaa district told Reuters via Skype.

He said most residents in the area had fled to safer districts and many were trying to escape the city altogether.

The Syrian government says rebels have killed about 3,000 members of the security forces and blames the violence on "terrorist" gangs. The official Sana news agency said the bodies of 18 "army martyrs", killed in various clashes, were buried on Saturday.

REBELS UNDER FIRE

Syrian troops have repeatedly targeted Homs, Syria's third largest city, and said last month they had regained control of Baba Amr, a large neighborhood held by rebels for several months. However, a surge in violence in other neighborhoods this week suggested the army was struggling to keep control.

The Homs activist, who declined to be named for fear of reprisals, said the opposition Free Syrian Army had also not been able to reestablish its hold on parts of the city.

"The Free Syrian Army had been in Bab Sbaa when the army started shelling the area four days ago and they weren't able to block the army raids because they were getting hit by mortars at the same time that armored vehicles were coming in," he said.

"We only have a few rebels here left. There is nothing they can do," he added.

It was impossible to verify the reports independently. Syrian authorities have prevented foreign journalists and human rights workers from entering affected areas.

Further to the north, security forces killed at least five people and wounded dozens more in raids on Saraqib, which lies in Idlib province bordering Turkey, activists said.

"There are dozens of tanks and armored vehicles storming Saraqib now and there is heavy artillery fire," an activist called Manhal said via Skype.

Mortars and heavy artillery fire also hit the city of Qusair, in Homs province, killing three civilians. There were reports of overnight clashes in the city of Douma, close to the capital Damascus.

In the southern province of Deraa, birthplace of the revolt, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a man was shot dead at a checkpoint in an area where a soldier had been gunned down. Three other soldiers were killed in an attack in the northeastern province of Hasaka, it said.

RUSSIAN COMPLAINTS

Deep divisions within opposition ranks have weakened the anti-Assad front. In a bid to tackle the problem at a military level, a senior army defector said on Saturday that all rebel groups would work under the leadership of the Free Syrian Army.

"In these critical times that our beloved Syria is passing through, it is necessary that all noble people of this nation work to unite all efforts at toppling this corrupt regime," Brigadier General Mustafa Sheikh said in a video message.

Sheikh said he would head the group's military council while FSA leader Colonel Riad al-Asaad, who was sitting alongside him, would take charge of the fighting forces.

Annan is leading international efforts to avoid any escalation and has drawn up a six-point plan, including demands for a ceasefire, the immediate withdrawal of heavy armor from residential areas and access for humanitarian assistance.

The EU and other bodies have also imposed sanctions to put pressure on Assad and his allies. The bloc added two state-owned oil companies - Syrian Petroleum Company and Mahrukat Company - to its list of organizations facing sanctions on Saturday, a day after it banned Assad's wife from travelling to the EU or shopping with European companies.

But attempts to halt the conflict have been stymied by divisions between world powers. Russia and China have vetoed two U.N. resolutions highly critical of Damascus.

Moscow and Beijing did support a Security Council resolution earlier this week endorsing Annan's mission. The former U.N. chief is due to fly to China after his Russia talks.

Moscow has accused the West of being too one-sided in the conflict, arguing that outside support for rebels is fuelling the fighting in Syria, which hosts a Russian naval base.

(Additional reporting by Alexei Anishchuk and Steve Gutterman in Moscow; Writing by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Andrew Heavens)

Space junk threatens station astronauts

WASHINGTON (AP) — A discarded chunk of a Russian rocket is forcing six space station astronautsto seek shelter in escape capsules early Saturday.
ASA spokesman Rob Navias (NAVE-e-us) says the space junk will barely be close enough to be a threat. But if it hits the station it could be dangerous, so the astronauts — two Americans, three Russians and a Dutchman — will wake early and climb into two Soyuz vehicles ready to rocket back to Earth just in case.

The debris is supposed to come closest at 2:38 a.m. EDT. It was not noticed until Friday, too late to move the International Space Station out of the way.

This is the third time in 12 years that astronauts have had to seek shelter from space junk.

Audit: Gas lines tied to fracking lack oversight

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Government auditors say federal officials know nothing about thousands of miles of pipelines that carry natural gas released through the drilling method known as fracking, and need to step up oversight to make sure they are running safely.

Amid the gas-drilling boom, private companies have put in hundreds of small gathering pipelines in recent years to collect new fuel supplies released through the high-pressure drilling technique.

Nationwide, about 240,000 miles of gathering pipelines ferry the gas and oil to processing facilities and larger pipelines in the major energy-producing states. Many of these pipelines course through densely populated areas, including neighborhoods in Fort Worth, Texas.

The Government Accountability Office said in its report issued Thursday that most of those miles are not regulated by the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which means they are not regularly inspected for leaks or corrosion.

In some states, officials don't know where the lines are.

Emily Krafjack, who lives in the gas-rich Marcellus Shale formation in Pennsylvania, said many local residents have no idea that the pipelines near their homes are not overseen by federal regulators. Gathering lines that run in the rural northeastern corner of the state receive no federal oversight if there are fewer than 10 homes within 220 yards of the pipeline.

"Who would ever think that they could run something like this next to your home and it wouldn't have any regulations attached to it?," said Krafjack, a former community liaison for Wyoming County, Pa., on gas issues.

Nationwide, there are about 200,000 miles of gas gathering lines and up to 40,000 miles of hazardous liquid gathering lines in rural and urban areas alike, ranging in diameter from about 2 to 12 inches. But only about 24,000 of those miles are regulated, according to the report.

The industry is not required to report pipeline-related fatality, injury or property damage information about the unregulated lines. PHMSA only collects information about accidents on the small subset of gathering lines that the agency regulates, but that data was not immediately available Thursday.

The pipeline agency is considering collecting more data on the unregulated gas gathering lines, but the plans are still preliminary and have met with some resistance from the natural gas industry. Agency officials are reviewing more than 100 public comments received about their proposal for gas lines, and also plan to propose a rule that will cover hazardous liquid gathering pipelines by the fall, said Jeannie Layson, a spokeswoman for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

PHMSA delegates some enforcement of its rules to state-level pipeline safety authorities, who the Government Accountability Office surveyed to understand the array of risks associated with gathering lines.

Those state-level agencies told the auditors that construction quality, maintenance practices, unknown locations, and limited or no information on current pipeline integrity all posed safety risks for federally unregulated gathering pipelines.

The expansion of hydraulic fracturing, which involves shattering rock thousands of feet underground with a combination of water, sand and chemicals, promises staggering yields, and drilling also comes with promises of job creation and economic opportunities.

But in Fort Worth, where dozens of new gathering lines have been laid in recent years to capture supplies from hundreds of new wells, some residents say there aren't enough protections from leaks and ruptures due to corrosion.

"It's ridiculous," said Jerry Lobdill, a retired chemical engineer who lives in a Fort Worth neighborhood near several new gas wells and has several lines running near his home. "The gathering lines are unregulated, the city doesn't know where they are, and they're buried so you can't see them."

The recent surge in drilling also has led California lawmakers to write new laws to increase oversight of the industry.

Assemblyman Bill Wieckowski, D-Fremont, is sponsoring a bill now pending before a state Senate committee that would require gas and oil producers to disclose what chemicals they are using when they engage in hydraulic fracturing.

"If we're on this cusp of a boom then maybe we at the very least need to know where these lines are," Wieckowski said.

Facebook buys IBM patents

Facebook confirmed Friday that it has added a trove of IBM patents to its arsenal on an increasingly lawsuit-strewn technology battlefield.

Reports that Facebook bought 750 software and networking patents from IBM surfaced less than two weeks after strugglingInternet pioneer Yahoo! accused the thriving young firm of infringing on 10 of its patents.

"I can confirm that there was a purchase but I don't have any other details to share," Facebook spokesman Larry Yu said in response to an AFP inquiry.

IBM would not comment.

Acquisition of the patents came as California-based Facebook prepared for an initial public offering and as Internet titans increasingly battle in courts as well as in marketplaces.

Yahoo!, in a lawsuit filed in US District Court for the Northern District of California on March 12, accused Facebook of infringing on patents in several areas including advertising, privacy and messaging.

The Sunnyvale, California-based company asked the court to order Facebook to halt its alleged patent-infringing activities and to assess unspecified damages.

Facebook, which was founded in 2004, a decade after Yahoo!, expressed disappointment with the move.

"We're disappointed that Yahoo!, a longtime business partner of Facebook and a company that has substantially benefited from its association with Facebook, has decided to resort to litigation," a Facebook spokeswoman said.

In the suit, Yahoo! said that Facebook's growth to more than 850 million users "has been based in large part on Facebook's use of Yahoo!'s patented technology."

"For much of the technology upon which Facebook is based, Yahoo! got there first and was therefore granted patents by the United States Patent Office to protect those innovations," Yahoo! said.

"Yahoo!'s patents relate to cutting edge innovations in online products, including in messaging, news feed generation, social commenting, advertising display, preventing click fraud and privacy controls."

Once seen as the Internet's leading light, Yahoo! has struggled in recent years to build a strongly profitable, growing business out of its huge Web presence and global audience.

Facebook takes steps to address privacy concerns

NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook has taken steps in recent days to address more worries about privacy, warning employers not to ask prospective employees for their passwords and trying to clarify its user "rights and responsibilities" policies.

But the latter effort backfired when tens of thousands of users, mostly in Germany, misunderstood the clarifications and blasted the company, even though nothing substantive had changed. Their discontent showed that, no matter what Facebook does, privacy concerns are still the biggest threat to users' trust and to its growth.

"There is such an incredible level of scrutiny now about anything any company does about privacy," said Jules Polonetsky, director of the Future of Privacy Forum, an industry-backed think tank in Washington. "We are treating every single thing that touches privacy as a five-alarm fire. The risk of all these five-alarm level outbursts is that people will become inured about privacy and miss realprivacy issues because of crying wolf when nothing is actually going on."

Users' willingness to share information is a key part of Facebook's business. The site makes the bulk of its money from ads that target users based on their personal information. Last year, the company earned a profit of $668 million and booked $3.7 billion of revenue, and it's preparing for an initial public offering later this spring that could be valued at as much as $100 billion.

Privacy issues have dogged Facebook for years. It settled with the Federal Trade Commission in November over allegations that it misled users about the handling of their personal information. Google Inc., a big rival, agreed to a similar settlement eight months earlier.

The latest ruckus happened when more than 30,000 German users posted that they were rejecting the company's proposed changes to its governing documents. But the changes amounted to nuanced revisions and clarifications of long-standing policies — not a major overhaul.

The company, for instance, replaced the word "profile" with "timeline," since Facebook users now have a different type of profile. Facebook also changed "hateful" to "hate speech" in its description of prohibited content.

Still, users who read the documents for the first time noticed some things that alarmed them. For example, the document replaced the words "privacy policy" with "data-use policy," seemingly taking privacy out of the picture.

Facebook has been calling it a data-use policy since September, preferring to be more straightforward about its actual purpose. But the company makes so many subtle changes that it's easy to lose track.

"It's clear that some people fundamentally misunderstand our proposed changes. Our data-use policy governs how we use and collect data. That document is not changing at this time," Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said. "That's why we have this unique and transparent process, though — so have an opportunity to clarify confusion and respond to user concerns. We look forward to doing so in the coming weeks."

Another worrisome discovery might have been the fact that applications used by your Facebook friends can gain access to your data on Facebook, even if you do not use the apps yourself. That's true, but it's been true since at least 2007 and well-documented elsewhere on the site.

The attention focused on Facebook's largely cosmetic changes reflect just how closely people watch the company.

"If they reposted the same privacy policy they had, everyone would be jumping up and down," said Polonetsky, a former chief privacy officer at AOL.

Sarah Downey, senior privacy strategist at an online privacy software provider called Abine, was among those criticizing Facebook this week. She said the company is being more straightforward about its business model and what it does by clarifying its documents. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's heading in the right direction.

"What we once thought of as a social network has really become an advertising network," she said.

On Friday, it was Facebook itself that raised alarms about privacy, warning employers not to ask job applicants for their passwords to the site so they can poke around on their profiles. The company threatened legal action against applications that violate its long-standing policy against sharing passwords.

The company action came after The Associated Press documented cases of job applicants who were asked, at the interview table, to reveal their Facebook passwords so their prospective employers can check their online profiles.

A Facebook executive cautioned that if an employer discovers that a job applicant is a member of a protected group, the employer may be vulnerable to claims of discrimination if it doesn't hire that person.

"As a user, you shouldn't be forced to share your private information and communications just to get a job," Erin Egan, Facebook's chief privacy officer of policy, wrote in a post. "And as the friend of a user, you shouldn't have to worry that your private information or communications will be revealed to someone you don't know and didn't intend to share with just because that user is looking for a job."

The post sparked comments from Facebook users, many of them thankful. But the number totaled only 108 — a sign that when it comes to online privacy, it's far easier to stir anger than gratitude.

EU slaps sanctions on Assad's family; mortars hit Homs

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The European Union slapped sanctions onPresident Bashar al-Assad's powerful mother and wife on Friday, targeting his inner circle in an effort to force Syria to end its repression of a year-long uprising.

The EU's latest round of sanctions hit 10 other prominent personalities, including Assad's sister and sister-in-law, banning them from visiting the 27-nation bloc, freezing their assets and stopping them from shopping with European firms.

"With this new listing we are striking at the heart of the Assad clan, sending out a loud and clear message to Mr. Assad: he should step down," said Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal after fellow ministers backed the move at a meeting in Brussels.

The decision came on a day of renewed violence across Syria, with the army raining mortar rounds into the rebellious city of Homs, killing up to 11 civilians, opposition supporters said.

Live television feeds from around Syria showed a slew of anti-Assad rallies, including in the Damascus district of Barzeh, in the northwestern city of Hama, in Qamishli in the Kurdish east, and in the southern province of Deraa.

"Damascus here we come," read several placards held up by the relatively small crowds. Activists said eight people were wounded after demonstrations near five Damascus mosques were broken up by security forces.

On the diplomatic front, the U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, who is leading international efforts to stop the relentless mayhem, planned to travel to Moscow and Beijing this weekend for talks on the crisis, his spokesman said.

Russia and China have resisted Western and Arab demands that Assad stand down and have vetoed two U.N. resolutions highly critical of Damascus. However, they supported a Security Council statement this week backing Annan's peace initiative, in a move seen as a sign they were toughening their stance on Syria.

Nevertheless, both Russia and China voted against a call by the U.N. Human Rights Council on Friday to extend a probe into abuses by Syrian forces, arguing it was too one-sided.

The motion passed regardless, with 41 of the forum's 47 members voting in favor of the text, which said the perpetrators of the brutality had to be brought to justice.

GLAMOUR AND POWER

More than 8,000 people have died in the rebellion, according to U.N. figures, but Western powers have ruled out military intervention in such a sensitive part of the world, putting the emphasis instead on economic sanctions and diplomacy.

The new EU sanctions build on 12 previous rounds of sanctions aimed at isolating Assad, including an arms embargo and a ban on importing Syrian oil to the European Union.

At first sight they appear largely symbolic, but show the West is ready to broaden its net in its effort to isolate Assad.

A former investment banker, Assad's wife Asma cultivated the image of a glamorous yet serious-minded woman with Western values who was meant to humanize the isolated Assad family

But that image has crumbled over the past year, and she has stood resolutely by her husband's side, describing herself as "the real dictator" in an email published by Britain's Guardian newspaper last week.

Assad's mother, Anisa Makhlouf, has a lower profile than the Asma but opposition figures say she wields greater influence within the dynasty which has ruled Syria for four decades.

Asma's ancestral home is Homs, now a symbol of the revolt which has been subjected to particularly fierce army attack. Video from the city on Friday showed plumes of smoke rising from residential areas after being hit by apparent mortar fire.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in Britain and has a network of contacts in Syria, said the army clashed with defectors in the north-eastern town of Azaz, on the border with Turkey. Three soldiers and one defector were killed as the army fired heavy machineguns and mortar rounds, it said.

It said three had died in clashes in Deraa, close to Jordan.

Other activists working for the Local Coordination Committees of Syria reported 32 deaths on Friday around the country. They also said rebels had captured 17 members of the security forces in the northwestern Idlib province.

It is impossible to verify reports from Syria because authorities have denied access to independent journalists.

Syria has said 3,000 members of the security forces have died in the uprising, which Damascus blames on terrorist gangs and foreign interference.

The violence has displaced 230,000 people and aid groups have pressed Syria to allow humanitarian access to the worst affected areas.

Relief teams from the International Committee of the Red Cross and Syrian Red Crescent have delivered aid to 9,000 people in the Syrian provinces of Homs and Idlib in recent days, the ICRC said on Friday.

ANNAN REVIEWING SITUATION

Annan has drawn up a six-point plan to end the unrest, including a demand for a ceasefire, political dialogue and full access for aid agencies. It also says the army should stop using heavy weapons in populated areas and pull troops back.

He sent five experts to Damascus earlier this week to discuss the deployment of international monitors -- something Assad has resisted. The team has now left Syria and there was no immediate word if they had made any progress.

"Mr. Annan and his team are currently studying the Syrian responses carefully, and negotiations with Damascus continue," his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said in a statement from Geneva.

Asked whether Annan would be returning to Damascus for talks with Assad, Fawzi told a news briefing: "He will at some point decide to go back, but this is not the time yet."

Instead he will head to Russia and China, no doubt hoping to persuade them to bring their influence to bear on Syria.

Unlike the Arab League and Western countries, Annan has not explicitly called for Assad to step down, talking only about the need for dialogue and political transition.

Russia has historically close ties to Syria, which is home to its only naval base outside the former Soviet Union. But analysts believe Moscow is starting to hedge its bets about Assad's fate and is positioning itself for his possible fall.

(Additional reporting by Justyna Pawlak; in Brussels and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; writing by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Jon Boyle)

Brazil may shift jurisdiction of Chevron case

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - A judge in Campos, Brazil, could shift the criminal charges filed against Chevron and drill-rig operatorTransocean to Rio de Janeiro, a decision that would remove a crusading prosecutor from the case.

Eduardo Santos de Oliveira, a federal prosecutor based in Campos, in Rio de Janeiro's interior, told Reuters on Friday a jurisdictional review is under way, which could delay any formal criminal indictment of the firms and their employees for weeks.

Oliveira filed criminal charges against Chevron, Transocean and 17 of their employees in Brazil this week for alleged crimes related to a November offshore oil spill in Brazil's Frade field, which Chevron operates.

He pledged to seek maximum prison sentences of 31 years against the firms' executives.

Federal judge Claudio Girão Barreto will consider whether the companies must post bonds in Campos or whether the case should be moved to Rio de Janeiro. The judicial review normally takes around ten calendar days.

The review does not alter the content of the criminal charges, but it could remove the case from Oliveira's turf and hand it to another team of prosecutors.

The question of jurisdiction stems from the location of the alleged crimes in a deep-sea oil field beyond Brazil's territorial waters but within its 200-nautical-mile "exclusive economic zone."

Oliveira said the judge had asked him to appear in court on Monday with more details about the case.

"I think moving the case to Rio de Janeiro would be a mistake," said Oliveira in a telephone interview. "Chevron and Transocean want you to believe this happened on some foreign ship or platform in international waters. But the crime happened under the seabed, in physical Brazilian territory."

Some Brazilian officials, including Senator Jorge Viana of the government's ruling party, have called Oliveira's charges over-aggressive. Viana told Reuters this week that the case could damage Brazil's oil industry.

A 20 billion reais ($11 billion) civil suit filed earlier by Oliveira in Campos against Chevron and Transocean, its drilling contractor at Frade, has already been shifted to Rio de Janeiro's capital. A judge ruled in January that Campos wasn't the proper jurisdiction for the civil case, Brazil's largest-ever environmental lawsuit.

Chevron's November leak of 2,400 to 3,000 barrels of oil at the Frade field was the result of a pressure kick during drilling. Oliveira has said Chevron's drilling was reckless and unsafe. The companies deny the charges.

(Editing by Brad Haynes, Gary Hill)