BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Friday the group had captured three spies among its members, two of whom were recruited by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency .
"None of these three cases are within the first rank of (Hezbollah's) senior leadership," he said.
Verizon’s ramping up its smartphone roster with a new lineup of devices, all featuring entertainment perks, speed boosts and new features. The four new devices include the Xperia Play, LG Revolution, HTC Trophy and Motorola Droid X2.
The Xperia Play is the darling of the bunch, manufactured by Sony Ericsson, and donning the PlayStation mark. It’s a gaming phone, connected to the PlayStation Network, and designed to handle high-end games, making it a hefty gaming device that happens to have phone capabilities. With a 4-inch 480x854 display, 1GHz CUP and an 8GB memory card, the long-awaited Xperia Play will cost you $199 if you give Verizon two years of your life.
LG’s hoping to make a splash in the device arena with the Revolution, touting LTE capabilities as one of its selling features. This makes the Revolution a speedy phone, with faster data transfer on the go. It’s slightly bigger than the Xperia Play, with a 4.3-inch screen, a single-core 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, a 5-megapixel back camera (and 1.3-megapixel front camera), and 16GB of storage. You’ll pay a premium for the speed, however, with the Revolution’s price tag of approximately $250 with a two-year contract.
The HTC Trophy, on the other hand, is the device maker’s latest Windows phone, boasting WP7 OS. It’s the cheapest in this freshly launched group, costing about $150 with a two-year contract. It’s also on the smaller side, with a 3.8-inch display, a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU, a 5-megapixel back camera and 16GB of storage memory.
Finally, there’s the Droid X2, which is roaring with power. It’s got the dual-core 1GHz CPU, with an 8-megapixel back camera and a 4.3 inch, 960x540 display. There’s no LTE on this phone, however, slightly dropping the price down to about $199 with a two-year contract. For all its beauty and brawn, the X2 is really missing out with no support for Verizon’s 4G capabilities, leaving it to city outskirts, while making way for faster phones.
PARIS (Reuters) – Rovio Mobile, creator of hit iPhone game Angry Birds, is aiming for a stock market listing in New York in two to three years, its chief executive told Reuters.
The Finnish company, which has grown from 12 to 100 people in just over a year, raised $42 million from investors led by Accel Partners in March and named Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstroem to its board.
"In terms of time line, probably two years, two to three years down the line is realistic," CEO Mikael Hed told the Reuters Global Technology Summit in Paris on Wednesday.
"I see that this is only beneficial for us in terms of making the company more structured and more focused on creating it into a proper large organization, having grown from a company of 12," he said.
Hed added that Rovio expected to make revenue of 50 to 100 million euros ($72-$143 million) this year and said the company was "very, very profitable."
($1=.7011 Euro)
(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by James Regan)
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli troops shot Palestinian protesters who surged toward its frontiers with Syria, Lebanon and Gaza on Sunday, killing at least 13 people on the day Palestinians mourn the establishment of Israel in 1948.
In the deadliest such confrontation in years of anniversary clashes usually confined to the West Bank and Gaza, Israeli forces opened fire in three separate border locations to prevent crowds of demonstrators from crossing frontier lines.
The new challenge to Israel came from the borders of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Gaza -- all home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled or were driven out in 1948.
Combined with a public relations disaster last year over the killing of pro-Palestinian activists in a Gaza aid flotilla and a determined Palestinian diplomatic drive to win U.N. recognition of statehood in September this year, the bloody border protests raised the stakes further for Israel.
Israel's leaders condemned the incidents as provocations inspired by Iran, to exploit Palestinian nationalist feeling fueled by the popular revolts of the "Arab Spring," and to draw attention from major internal unrest in Syria, Iran's ally.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hoped the confrontations would not escalate.
"We hope the calm and quiet will quickly return. But let nobody be misled: we are determined to defend our borders and sovereignty," Netanyahu said.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah movement holds sway in the Israeli occupied West Bank and is ready to negotiate peace with Israel, said in a televised address that those killed were martyrs to the Palestinian cause.
"Their precious blood will not be wasted. It was spilled for the sake of our nation's freedom," Abbas said.
HAMAS PRAISES CLASHES
But Islamist Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip and which last month sealed a surprise reconciliation pact with its bitter rival Fatah, issued a warning that Palestinians would accept nothing less than return to all lands lost in 1948.
Spokesman Taher Al-Nono praised the "crowds we have seen in Palestine, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon" as evidence of "imminent victory and return to the original homes as promised by God."
In an apparent contradiction of suggestions that Hamas might ditch its rejection of Israel's right to exist, he said there was no alternative to recovering all land lost in 1948.
Israeli security forces had been on alert for violence on Sunday, the day Palestinians mourn the "Nakba," or catastrophe, of Israel's founding in a 1948 war, when hundreds of thousands of their brethren fled or were forced to leave their homes.
A call had gone out on Facebook urging Palestinians to demonstrate on Israel's borders.
Lebanon's army said 10 Palestinians died as Israeli forces shot at rock-throwing protesters to prevent them from entering the Jewish State from Lebanese territory.
They said 112 people had been wounded in the shooting incident in the Lebanese border village of Maroun al-Ras.
"The protesters overcame the Lebanese army and marched toward the security fence and started throwing stones," Reuters cameraman Ezzat Baltaji said, from Maroun al-Ras village.
Syrian media reports said Israeli gunfire killed two people after dozens of Palestinians infiltrated the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from Syria, along a front line that has been largely tranquil for decades.
Syria condemned Israel's "criminal activities."
"This appears to be a cynical and transparent act by the Syrian leadership to deliberately create a crisis on the border so as to distract attention from the very real problems that regime is facing at home," said a senior Israeli government official, who declined to be named.
"Syria is a police state. People don't randomly approach the border without the approval of the regime."
On Sunday, hundreds of protesters flooded the lush green valley that marks the border area, waving Palestinian flags. Israeli troops attempted to mend the breached fence, firing at what the army described as infiltrators.
"We are seeing here an Iranian provocation, on both the Syrian and the Lebanese frontiers, to try to exploit the Nakba day commemorations," said the army's chief spokesman, Brigadier-General Yoav Mordechai.
Syria is home to 470,000 Palestinian refugees and its leadership, now facing fierce internal unrest, had in previous years prevented protesters from reaching the frontier area.
To the southeast, on Jordan's desert border with Israel, Jordanian police fired teargas to disperse hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists gathered at a border village.
Israeli forces did not fire over the Jordanian border.
On Israel's tense border with Gaza, Israeli gunfire wounded 82 demonstrators nearing the fence, medics said. Israeli forces said they shot a man trying to plant a bomb near the border.
In Tel Aviv, Israel's commercial hub, a truck driven by an Arab Israeli slammed into vehicles and pedestrians, killing one man and injuring 17 people.
Police were trying to determine whether that incident was an accident or an attack. Witnesses said the driver, who was arrested, deliberately ran amok with his truck in traffic.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian youths and Israeli forces clashed for hours at the main checkpoint dividing the Ramallah from Jerusalem, a constant flashpoint.
Palestinians threw rocks and soldiers fired rubber bullets and teargas to drive them away from the Qalandia checkpoint.
In Egypt, police fired teargas to force back several hundred pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had broken through a barricade in front of the Israeli embassy in Cairo, witnesses said.
ALERT
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the border challenge was foreseen, but not easy for Israel to handle.
"For months we have been discussing the possibility of the organization of mass processions. I don't think there is a magic solution for all situations," he told Israeli television.
"The Palestinians' transition from terror carried out by suicide bombers to mass demonstrations, on purpose without weapons, is a transition that poses many challenges. And we will deal with them in the future," Barak said.
The day's bloodshed will complicate decisions to be made by President Barack Obama, who is due to deliver a major Middle East policy speech on Thursday.
U.S.-brokered peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel broke down last year and no new negotiations are in the offing, with the U.S. Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell announcing his resignation last week..
MAJDAL SHAMS, Golan Heights (Reuters) – Israeli troops shot at Palestinian protesters on its frontiers with Syria, Lebanon and Gaza on Sunday, killing nine who were marking what they term "the catastrophe" of Israel's founding in 1948.
Troops opened fire in three separate border locations to prevent crowds of demonstrators, some lobbying rocks, from crossing Israeli frontier lines, in the deadliest such confrontation in years.
Israel called it a cynical provocation inspired by Iran, to exploit Palestinian nationalist feeling fueled by the popular revolts of the "Arab Spring" across the Middle East, and to draw attention from major internal unrest inside Syria, its ally.
The Syrian foreign ministry condemned what it called Israel's "criminal activities," the state news agency SANA said.
Syrian media reports said Israeli gunfire killed two people after dozens of Palestinian refugees infiltrated the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from Syria, along a disputed border that has been largely tranquil for decades.
Security sources on the nearby Lebanese frontier said six Palestinians died when Israeli forces shot at rock-throwing protesters to prevent them from entering the Jewish State.
The Lebanese army had also earlier fired in the air in an attempt to hold back the crowds.
On Israel's tense southern border with the Gaza Strip, Israeli gunfire wounded 82 demonstrators approaching the fence with the Hamas Islamist-run enclave, medical workers said. In a separate incident, Israeli forces said they shot a man who was trying to plant a bomb near the border. A body was later found.
In Tel Aviv, Israel's commercial hub, a truck driven by an Arab Israeli slammed into vehicles and pedestrians, killing one man and injuring 17 people.
Police were trying to determine whether the incident was an accident or an attack. Witnesses said the driver, who was arrested, deliberately ran amok with his truck in traffic.
ALERT
A spokesman for the Islamist Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip, Sami Abu Zuhri, called Sunday "a turning point in the Israeli-Arab conflict" that proved the Palestinian people and Arabs were committed to ending Israeli occupation.
Hezbollah condemned the "Israeli aggression on unarmed civilians in Maroun al-Ras and in the Golan, which constitutes a dangerous violation of human rights," said Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah who was participating at a pro-Palestinian protest in Maroun al-Ras.
"The resistance movement in Lebanon (Hezbollah) will continue to be an advocate for Palestinian national rights and calls on everyone to stand united in confronting Israeli occupation."
"What happened today in Maroun al-Ras and in the Golan is an embodiment of the will of the Palestinian people who are committed to the right of return."
Israeli security forces had been on alert for violence on Sunday, the day Palestinians mark the "Nakba," or catastrophe, of Israel's founding in a 1948 war, when hundreds of thousands of their brethren fled or were forced to leave their homes.
A call had gone out on Facebook urging Palestinians to demonstrate on Israel's borders.
To the south, Egyptian forces arrested six protesters and blocked hundreds of others from marching to its border with Israel, but no frontier police appeared to be on hand in Syria.
"This appears to be a cynical and transparent act by the Syrian leadership to deliberately create a crisis on the border so as to distract attention from the very real problems that regime is facing at home," said a senior Israeli government official, who declined to be named.
"Syria is a police state. People don't randomly approach the border without the approval of the regime."
The border zones are protected by the 1949 Armistice Agreement signed by Israel and its Arab neighbors. A spokesman for the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, set up on the Israeli-Syrian border after the 1967 Middle East war, said he had "no immediate information" about the rush on the border.
In the Druze village of Majdal Shams, on the Golan Heights captured by Israel from Syria in 1967, Mayor Dolan Abu Salah said between 40 and 50 Nakba demonstrators from Syria tore through the flimsy frontier fence.
Hundreds of protesters flooded the lush green valley that marks the border area, waving Palestinian flags. Israeli troops attempted to mend the breached fence, firing at what the army described as infiltrators.
"We are seeing here an Iranian provocation, on both the Syrian and the Lebanese frontiers, to try to exploit the Nakba day commemorations," said the army's chief spokesman, Brigadier-General Yoav Mordechai.
Syria is home to 470,000 Palestinian refugees and its leadership, now facing fierce internal unrest, had in previous years prevented protesters from reaching the frontier area.
WEST BANK CLASHES
In the Israeli occupied West Bank, Palestinian youths and Israeli forces clashed for hours at the main checkpoint dividing the Palestinian administrative capital of Ramallah from Jerusalem, a constant flashpoint.
Palestinians hurled rocks and set ablaze tires and soldiers fired tear gas, rubber bullets and tear gas to drive them away from the Qalandia checkpoint.
Several hundred protesters, some of whom were said they had come from Hebron in the southern West Bank and Jenin in the northern West Bank to join the protest.
Hamas spokesman Taher Al-Nono praised the "crowds we have seen in Palestine, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon" as evidence of "the imminent victory and return to the original homes as promised by God."
U.S.-brokered Peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel broke down last year and no new negotiations are in the offing, with the U.S. Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell announcing his resignation on Friday.
(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Jeffrey Heller, Dan Williams and Ori Lewis in Jerusalem, Ali Sawafta in Ramallah, Tom Perry in Ramallah, Yara Bayoumy in Beirut and Laila Bassam; Writing by Douglas Hamilton; editing by Crispian Balmer and Matthew Jones)
Washington (CNN) -- Three academically competitive high schools from different areas of the country are competing for a lofty prize: an appearance and a speech from President Barack Obama at their spring commencement ceremony.
Booker T. Washington High School in Memphis, Tennessee, is in an inner city school with high teen pregnancy and HIV/AIDS rates and a history of violence. But the school's graduation rate has risen from 55% to 82% in the past four years.
Bridgeport High School in a rural district of Washington state is 90% Hispanic, and the majority of the students are the first to graduate high school. With a graduation rate of 100%, this year's crop of seniors have been accepted to college.
High Tech High School in San Diego, with a graduation rate of 99%, is not so much a technology school as its name implies. It's a place that pushes its students to think creatively and to understand and solve problems without the use of textbooks.
One of the three schools will learn Monday that they won the right to hear the commander-in-chief deliver a commencement speech at their graduation.
Many more U.S. schools initially applied for the distinction, but the academic rigor, high graduation rates and college expectations of these three institutions made them finalists in the 2011 Race to the Top Commencement Challenge. For the competition, public schools through essays, statistics and videos showed how they promote college and career readiness, and increased student achievement for their students. The public voted online to narrow the six semi-finalists to the top three. It's up to the White House to make the final decision. The contest is sponsored by the White House, Viacom and the Get Schooled Foundation.
"It was humbling to have hundreds of extraordinary schools apply to the challenge, and knowing how hard they work every day to serve their students and communities makes the president's decision of choosing just one very tough," said Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
"Even though they live in the poorest zip code in the city, the educational outcomes that they are producing are among the highest in the city," Memphis Schools Superintendent Kriner Cash said of the Booker T. Washington students.
The inner-city school has a student body that is 100% African-American with 98% of their students eligible for free or reduced lunch.
They had a "culture of failure" according to Cash.
Then three years ago, the school system adopted a menu of reforms that the Memphis high schools could implement to address that problem.
The principal at Booker T. Washington liberally enacted many of the suggestions including gender-based classes for freshmen; assigning the best teachers in the core subjects of English, mathematics and science; and increasing the number of Advanced Placement courses offered to the students.
AP courses are considered a good way to prepare students for the rigor of college.
The school now has the lowest number of serious violence incidents, and the highest attendance rate of all of the Memphis high schools.
As for winning the Commencement Challenge, "it would mean so much to the students," said Cash. "Just to get up sometimes and come to school with what they face the night before or the day before, you and I couldn't do it."
The town of Bridgeport sits on the Columbia River in rural Washington State. Its main industry is agriculture, specifically apples and cherries.
The closest college is Wenatchee Valley Community College 80 miles away, making it difficult for the student to conceptualize going to college, according to Principal Tamra Jackson.
In 2003, Bridgeport High School offered only one college-level course in English. Now, they have 16 courses that students can take to earn college credit.
Jackson said that the school system upped the offerings by taking teachers who already had master's degrees -- which are generally required for college teaching.
It sent them to Wenatchee Valley Community College to get certified to teach colleges courses at the high school.
It brought the teachers back to Bridgeport and started offering the college-credit courses to the students.
This year, all of the students in the senior class have applied and been accepted to college and many are starting out with college credits already under their belts.
The school now has a "college-going philosophy," according to Jackson. "You aren't cool if you aren't taking at least one AP or college course," she said.
High Tech High School in San Diego doesn't have the high poverty or rural issues that the other two finalists face. They instead point to their innovative approach to learning that pushes students to think for themselves.
"We don't have the traditional high school textbooks, but our students do read a lot," said Dean of Students Melissa Agudelo. Students are pushed to read up-to-date information on their area of study from a variety of sources.
"We don't want our students to read just one viewpoint out of a textbook, we want them to be critical. Being confident enough to be critical is what creates in kids the willingness to be original and innovate," said Agudelo.
She admits that all three of the finalists in the Commencement Challenge appear to be excellent schools, but if Obama is looking for a school that is pushing innovation to keep the U.S. competitive in the 21st century, then High Tech High School does it best.
Senior Rishika Daryanani, who co-chaired the school's initial application, said she is ecstatic that High Tech made it this far in the competition and she can't wait to see if they win. If they do, she said she thinks she will cry.
Back in Washington State, Bridgeport Principal Jackson is excited but a little wary. The Bridgeport students have AP testing scheduled for Monday, so they will need to focus on their school work while emotionally dealing with either their win or loss in the Commencement Challenge.
