Egypt protesters, police clash at presidential palace

CAIRO Protesters denouncing Egypt's Islamist president hurled stones and firebombs through the gates of his palace gates on Friday, clashing with security forces who fired tear gas and water cannons, as more than a week of political violence came to Mohammed Morsi's symbolic doorstep for the first time.

The streets outside the presidential palace were a scene of mayhem for hours into the night.

Security forces pumped volley after volley of tear gas, set fire to protester tents and at one point dragged a protester to the ground, stripped him and beat him. Protesters burned tires and hurled stones and fireworks. A 23-year-old died when he was shot in the chest and forehead, the Health Ministry said.

The march on the palace, where Morsi was not present, was part of a wave of demonstrations in cities around the country called by opposition politicians, trying to wrest concessions from Morsi after around 60 people were killed in protests, clashes and riots.

But many of the protesters go further, saying he must be removed from office, accusing his Muslim Brotherhood of monopolizing power and failing to deal with the country's mounting woes. Many have been further angered by Morsi's praise of the security forces after the high death toll, which is widely blamed on excessive use of force by the police.

The day's unrest, however, risked boosting attempts by the government and Brotherhood to taint the opposition as violent and destructive -- a tack Morsi supporters have taken for weeks.

In a statement issued amid the clashes, Morsi accused protesters of trying to break ito the palace and said "political fores involved in incitement" are responsible for the violence. He called on all factions to condemn the violence and said security forces would "act decisively to protect state institutions."

A day earlier, the top opposition figures met with the Brotherhood for the first time and agreed on a joint promise to avoid violence. That drew sharp criticism from many anti-Morsi activists who said the politicians had played into the Brotherhood's hands and given legitimacy to any crackdown.

The fighting started when a crowd of several thousand marched to the palace in an upscale district of the capital, chanting, "the people want the fall of the regime," and "leave, leave, Morsi." Security forces allowed them to reach close to the main gate, and some protesters hurled shoes and stones through the fence into the grounds. Some climbed on the fence, apparently to better throw stones, but it did not appear they were breaking in.

At first, police and Republican Guards inside did not respond. But when several firebombs were thrown over the fence, the security forces unleashed water cannons, then tear gas, then riot police descended on the streets outside the palace.

Hours of clashes ensued, with streams of tear gas and stones flying through the air as security forces pushed the protesters back. A particularly heavy volley of dozens of tear gas canisters over a few minutes scattered much of the crowd, fleeing into side streets as riot police pursued and the sound of birdshot being fired echoed. Associated Press footage showed police stripping one protester on the ground and kicking him before dragging him into a van.

The Interior Ministry, in charge of police, later said in a statement that it would investigate the incident, calling it "regrettable and unacceptable."

More than 50 people were hurt during demonstrations around the country, the Health Ministry said.

The turmoil was the first significant violence at the presidential palace in the eight-day wave of protests -- though the site was the scene of clashes in November between anti-Morsi protesters and Islamists that left around 10 people dead. But other protests around the country on Friday did not see significant violence.

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Hillary Clinton Says Goodbye...Until 2016?

Feb 1, 2013 6:48pm

Image Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo

After four years, nearly a million miles traveled and 112 countries visited, Hillary Clinton stepped down as the 67th secretary of state on Friday. But even on this, her final day as America’s top diplomat, she could not escape the questions about what she’ll do four years from now.

Many of the 1,000 employees who gathered to see her off expressed hope that this was not the end of her political career.

“2016! 2016!” the crowd chanted as   Clinton waved and drove away. “We’ll Miss You!”

Right before her departure, Clinton gave the traditional farewell speech to staff on the steps of the State Department’s historic C street lobby. In a roughly 10 minute, often reflective speech she called the 70,000 State Department employees part of “a huge extended family.”

“I cannot fully express how grateful I am to those with whom I have spent many hours here in Washington, around the world and in airplanes,” she said, drawing laughter from the audience.

Clinton’s trademark sense of humor was on display, even as she grew emotional  speaking about how much the State Department had  meant to her over the last four years.

PHOTOS: Hillary Clinton Through the Years

“I am very proud to have been secretary of state. I will miss you. I will probably be dialing ops just to talk,” she joked to a cheering and laughing crowd. “I will wonder what you all are doing, because I know that because of your efforts day after day, we are making a real difference.”

But  Clinton also was somber when discussing the danger diplomats and foreign service officers face all over the world, using Thursday’s suicide bombing attack against the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, in which a Turkish guard was killed, as an example.

“We live in very complex and even dangerous times, as we saw again just today at our embassy in Ankara, where we were attacked and lost one of our foreign service nationals, and others injured,” said Clinton “But I spoke with the ambassador and the team there. I spoke with my Turkish counterpart. And I told them how much we valued their commitment and their sacrifice.”

Clinton was flanked by trusted deputies, Bill Burns and Tom Nides, whom she gave warm hugs to at the end of the speech. With a huge “Thank You” sign behind her she walked a rope line after finishing her speech, greeting the hordes of employees who wanted to shake her hand and say goodbye before she walked out of the State Department as secretary of state for the last time.

“It’s been quite a challenging week saying goodbye to so many people and knowing that I will not have the opportunity to continue being part of this amazing team,” Clinton said. “But I am so grateful that we’ve had a chance to contribute in each of our ways to making our country and our world stronger, safer, fairer and better.”

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Swarm-mongering: Brainless blobs flock together

Birds of a feather flock together and now so do brainless, inanimate blobs. Made of microscopic particles, the artificial swarms could shed light on the mysterious mechanisms behind the natural swarming seen in fish and birds. They might also lead to materials with novel properties like self-healing.

Animals such as birds, fish and even humans that move together in swarms have individual intelligence, but Jérémie Palacci of New York University and colleagues wondered whether inanimate objects could also swarm. "From a physicist's point of view, if many different systems behave in the same way there must be an underlying physical rule," he says.

To explore this idea, the team created microscopic plastic spheres, each one with a cubic patch of haematite, an iron oxide, on its surface. When submerged in hydrogen peroxide, the spheres spread out in a disordered fashion. The team then shone blue light on the particles, causing the haematite cubes to catalyse the breakdown of any nearby hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen. As hydrogen peroxide concentration dropped temporarily in these regions due to the reaction, osmotic forces cause more hydrogen peroxide to flow into them, and that in turn buffets the spheres. The whole process then repeats.

Self-healing swarm

When two spheres come close enough to each other, the balance of chemical forces shifts so that the two spheres are attracted. If there are enough spheres in the same place they will cluster together to form shapes of symmetrically arranged particles, which the team call crystals (see video, above). These crystals continue to be buffeted by the movement caused by the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide – but now they move together as one object, replicating a life-like swarm. Switch off the light, however, and the reaction stops, causing the crystal to lose the forces that hold it together, and the particle distribution becomes disordered once again.

"This system shows that even though the particles have no social interaction or intelligence, you can exhibit collective behaviour with no biology involved," says Palacci. Since the haematite is magnetic, it is even possible to steer the crystals in one direction by applying a magnetic field. Such control might be useful if the artificial swarms are to be harnessed for applications.

As the particles automatically fill any gaps that form in the crystal, again thanks to the chemical dynamics of the system, they could be used to create a self-assembling, self-healing material. The work is published in the journal Science today.

Schooled by fish

Iain Couzin of Princeton University says these kinds of systems are very useful for studying biological collective behaviour because researchers have complete control over their interactions – unlike natural systems.

His team has its own swarming experiment published in the same issue of Science, based on schools of fish that prefer to stay in shade. Their paper shows that shining a light on some of the fish in the school causes them to speed up, to get away from the light. But as a result, non-illuminated fish also speed up, even though, if acting purely as individuals, they would have had no reason to do so. "We show just by using simple interactions that schools can have a sense of responsiveness to the environment that individuals do not have," he says.

Couzin sees no reason why such behaviour should be limited to natural systems. "In future it may be possible to create systems of particles that can make collective decisions – something we often think of as only possible in biological systems," he says.

Journal references: Living crystals: Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1230020; Fish: Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1225883

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Sony invites press to mystery New York event

SAN FRANCISCO: Sony sent out invitations Thursday to a mystery event in New York City on February 20, sparking rumors that the world would get its first look at a new-generation PlayStation videogame console.

Both Sony and Microsoft are expected this year to show off successors to their competing consoles, which have been evolving into home entertainment hubs for films, television, music, social networking and more.

The PlayStation 3 was released in November 2006 and industry trackers believe a successor is on the near horizon.

In January, the number of PS3 units shipped by Sony hit an estimated 77 million units, according to market research firm International Data Corporation.

IDC gaming research manager Lewis Ward predicted at the time of the report that consoles will retain their strongholds in homes while expanding to include other digital entertainment.

"The console ecosystem is in a state of flux since these platforms need to support an ever-growing array of non-gaming features and services at the same time that game distribution and monetization is moving in a digital direction," Ward said.

"It doesn't appear that alternative platforms -- set-top boxes from cable companies, Web-connected smart TVs and so on -- are positioned to materially disrupt the trajectory of the 'big 3' console OEMs in 2013 or 2014."

Videogame industry sales should be bolstered by the arrival of next-generation videogame consoles from Sony and Microsoft, according to Ward.

"With the advent of eighth-generation consoles, starting with the Wii U, historical norms strongly imply that game disk revenue will stop bleeding in 2013 and rise substantively in 2014," he said in the report.

- AFP/ir

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14 killed in blast at offices of Mexican state oil company

By CNN Staff

updated 8:28 PM EST, Thu January 31, 2013

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: 14 people were killed and at least 100 are injured, interior minister says


• NEW: Mexico's president says he is heading to the scene to coordinate rescue efforts


• Rescuers are searching for people trapped in the building, one of the city's tallest


• Witness: "People were screaming. ... You could see pieces of the wall falling"

Mexico City (CNN) -- An explosion rocked the offices of Mexico's state oil company Thursday, killing at least 14 people and injuring dozens more, officials said.

At least 100 people were injured in the Mexico City blast, Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong told Foro TV.

Dozens of people were trapped in the building after the blast, Foro TV reported.

Osorio Chong said rescuers were searching for survivors in the basement of the office tower, which is one of the city's tallest skyscrapers.

It was unclear what caused the explosion, which occurred in the building's basement, Pemex spokesman Francisco Montano told Notimex.

A large plume of smoke rose near the building after the explosion, and emergency crews swarmed the scene.

"People were screaming. ... You could see pieces of the wall falling to the ground," said Joaquin Borrell Valenzuela, an attorney for the Pemex comptroller's office, who was in a courtyard outside the building at the time of the blast.

Images from the scene showed emergency rescue teams carrying people on stretchers. Authorities said helicopters carried some of the wounded to hospitals.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto expressed his condolences to victims' families and said in a Twitter post Thursday night that he was heading to the office complex to supervise rescue efforts.

The 54-story office tower is nearly 700 feet tall, was built in 1979 and withstood the 8.1 magnitude earthquake that shook Mexico City in 1985, according to Emporis, a company that tracks building data worldwide.

Officials evacuated the building and operations will cease there until further notice, the company said.

CNN's Catherine E. Shoichet, Rafael Romo, Edwin Mesa, Christine Theodorou, Rey Rodriguez and Rene Hernandez and CNNMexico.com contributed to this report.

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14 dead, 80 injured in Mexico oil company blast

Updated 8:25 PM ET

MEXICO CITY An explosion at the main headquarters of Mexico's state-owned oil company in the capital killed 14 people and injured 80 on Thursday as it heavily damaged three floors of the building, sending hundreds into the streets and a large plume of smoke over the skyline.

There were also reports that as many as 30 people were trapped in the debris from the explosion, which occurred in the basement of an administrative building next to the iconic, 52-story tower of Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex.

There was no immediate cause given for the blast, which also damaged the first and second floors of the auxiliary building in a busy commercial and residential area. But in an earlier Tweet, Pemex said it had evacuated the building as a precautionary measure because of a problem with the electrical system.

"It was an explosion, a shock, the lights went out and suddenly there was a lot of debris," employee Cristian Obele told Milenio television, adding that he had been injured in the leg. "Co-workers helped us get out of the building."

The tower, where several thousand people work, was evacuated. The main floor and the mezzanine of the auxiliary building, where the explosion occurred, were heavily damaged, along with windows as far as three floors up.

"Right now they're conducting a tour of the building and the area adjacent to the blast site to verify if there are any still trapped so they can be rescued immediately," Interior Ministry spokesman Eduardo Sanchez told Milenio.

A reporter at the scene saw rescue workers trying to free several workers trapped. Television images showed people being evacuated by office chairs, and gurneys. Most of them had injuries likely caused by falling debris.

"We were talking and all of sudden we heard an explosion with white smoke and glass falling from the windows," said Maria Concepcion Andrade, 42, who lives on the block of Pemex building. "People started running from the building covered in dust. A lot of pieces were flying."

Police landed four rescue helicopters to remove the dead or injured. About a dozen tow trucks were furiously moving cars to make more landing room for the helicopters.

Streets surrounding the building were closed as evacuees wandered around, and rescue crews loaded the injured into ambulances.

"I profoundly lament the death of our fellow workers at Pemex. My condolences to their families," President Enrique Pena Nieto said via his Twitter account.

Shortly before the explosion, Operations Director Carlos Murrieta reported via Twitter that the company had reduced its accident rate in recent years. Most Pemex accidents have occurred at pipeline and refinery installations.

A fire at a pipeline metering center in northeast Mexico near the Texas border killed 30 workers in September, the largest-single toll in at least a decade for the company.

6 Photos

Oil company explosion in Mexico City

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What If Undocumented Immigrants Had Voted?

If every undocumented immigrant had cast a vote for President Obama in 2012, he would have won Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas, and he would have beaten Mitt Romney by nearly 11 percentage points nationally, instead of three.

Only citizens can vote, however, and 11.2 million unauthorized residents didn't get the chance.

But with immigration overhaul on the table, legalizing new Democratic voters looms as a threat for conservatives who don't want to hand their political foes a potential windfall of 11.2 million new voters with the creation of a pathway to citizenship -- and to voting rights -- with a comprehensive bill.

"The fear that many people have is that the Democrats aren't interested in border security, that they want this influx," Rush Limbaugh griped during his Tuesday interview with overhaul champion Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. "For example, if 70 percent of the Hispanic vote went Republican, do you think the Democrats would be for any part of this legislation?"

New immigration policies could mean in influx of new voters, but Republicans needn't worry about it in the short term.

See Also: Gang of Eight Accelerates Immigration Reform Pace

"Under almost any scenario, it's pretty far in the distance," Jeff Passell, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center, said of the prospect that unauthorized immigrants' gaining voting rights would pump up numbers significantly enough to meaningfully change the U.S. electorate.

Whitney Curtis/Getty Images

And yet, the "influx" wouldn't be negligible: "Realistically, we're talking about potentially adding probably 5 million potential voters or so in 10 years," he said.

Hispanic voters broke 71 percent for Obama in November, and Republican strategists recognize that the party has failed to court Hispanic voters effectively. But depending on how slowly the citizenship line moves, the Republican Party will have a decade or so to shake its anti-Hispanic stigma.

See also: A Glossary for Immigration Reform

"It's a long time coming. You're talking about 15 to 20 years before we're talking about a whole slew of new voters coming into the electorate," said Jennifer Korn, executive director of the Hispanic Leadership Network, who served as Hispanic outreach director for George W. Bush's presidential campaign.

"If Republicans can map out and change their positions with things that Hispanics do support -- on less government, lower taxes, less regulations on small businesses -- then they can really compete for the Hispanic vote over the next 20, 30 years."

There are 11.2 unauthorized immigrants living in the United States, according to the Pew Hispanic Center's estimate. While most are of voting age (Pew estimates just 1 million younger than 18), the deluge of new Democratic voters might not be as substantial as Limbaugh implied.

In other words, it's not as if Democrats will gain 11.2 million votes in the next few years. Here are some things to keep in mind:

• Not All Hispanics Vote for Democrats. Most do, but not all, and voter preferences vary from state to state. In Florida, 60 percent of Hispanic voters backed Obama, according to 2012 exit polls; in Arizona, 74 percent voted for the president. Even if all 11.2 million had voted in 2012, Obama would only have picked up North Carolina if they simply hewed to Hispanic voter trends. Romney still would have carried Arizona, Georgia and Texas, although he would have won Georgia by less than 1 percentage point. (Note: There were no exit polls in Texas or Georgia, and here the national rate provides rough estimates of how results would have changed.)

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Today on New Scientist: 30 January 2013

Timbuktu's precious scientific texts must be saved

Islamist militants in Mali have burned documents that attest to science in Africa before European colonisation - what remains must be protected

Think that massage feels good? Try adding drugs

Nerve bundles that respond to stroking have been identified and chemically activated in mice

How Obama will deliver his climate promise

The US is set to meet - and maybe exceed - Obama's pledge to cut US emissions by 17 per cent, which could give a boost to international climate talks

Minimum booze price will rein in alcohol abuse

Evidence suggests the UK government's proposal to set a minimum price for alcohol could save thousands of lives, and billions of pounds of public money

First real time-travel movies are loopers

Hollywood has played with time travel for decades, but now physicists have the first movies of what travelling to the past actually looks like

Surfer rides highest wave ever caught

Garret McNamara of Hawaii claims to have ridden the highest wave ever caught by a surfer, a 30-metre monster off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal

Infrared laptop trackpad ignores accidental touches

Longpad is a touchpad that extends the full width of your laptop and uses infrared sensors to ignore any unwanted touches

Close call coming: Averting the asteroid threat

With an errant space rock heading this way, just how good are our asteroid defences - and how do we avert the cataclysm?

The right to fight: women at war

The US military has accepted women into combat. What can science tell us about how women deal with being in the line of fire? And are they any different to men?

Earth and others lose status as Goldilocks worlds

Several planets are taking a hit thanks to a redefinition of the habitable zone - the area around a star in which liquid water can theoretically exist

The 10,000-year bender: Why humans love a tipple

Our taste for alcohol results from an evolutionary tussle between humans and yeast - one in which the microbes have often had the upper hand

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Research links acute malnutrition to gut microbes

WASHINGTON: A dearth of calories may not be the only reason some children face acute malnutrition, according to a new study out this week that says the microbes living in our guts may also be to blame.

Within hunger-stricken communities, not all children fare the same. Some develop acute malnutrition, while others, even their brothers and sisters, may stay healthy.

And some children respond well to treatment -- generally a peanut-based nutrient-rich supplement -- while for others, the benefits cease when the treatment does.

To figure out why this happens, researchers studied more than 300 sets of twins in Malawi, where malnutrition is a common childhood ailment, during their first three years of life.

Among half the twin pairs, one or both twins became malnourished over the course of the study.

Even among identical twins, there were cases where one twin -- but not the other -- developed a form of malnutrition called kwashiorkor, associated with swollen bellies, liver damage, skin ulcerations and loss of appetite, in addition to wasting.

That ruled out human genetics as a factor in the disorder, since identical twins share identical genomes.

But the researchers found something else at play: the microbes in the gut that extract nutrients and calories from the diet synthesise vitamins and nutrients and help shape the immune system.

When any of the twins became malnourished, both received treatment to limit food sharing.

In the healthy twin, the gut microbes thrived with the extra food and continued to mature after the treatment ended. But in the severely malnourished twin, the gut microbes stalled out or even regressed by four weeks after the treatment ended.

The findings were further bolstered when the researchers implanted into mice the gut microbes of the healthy and malnourished twins.

Both groups of mice were fed the same diet -- one similar to the nutrient-deficient diet common in Malawi -- but the ones who were transplanted with the malnourished children's microbes dropped weight, while the others did not.

"The gut microbes of malnourished children and malnourished mice do not appear to mature along a normal, healthy trajectory," said senior author Jeffrey Gordon of Washington University's Centre for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology.

"Our results suggest we need to devise new strategies to repair gut microbial communities so these children can experience healthy growth and reach their full potential."

Gordon said the new findings could be a crucial step towards finding better treatment for severely malnourished children.

"It may be that earlier or longer treatment with existing or next-generation therapeutic foods will enhance our ability to repair or prevent the problems associated with malnutrition," he said.

"We are also exploring whether it is possible to supplement the therapeutic food with beneficial gut bacteria from healthy children, as a treatment to repair the gut microbiome," he added.

"We hope that these studies will provide a new way of understanding how the gut microbiome and food interact to affect the health and recovery of malnourished children."

Their study is to be published Thursday in the US journal "Science".

According to UNICEF, a person dies of starvation every 3.6 seconds, and most of the deaths are among children under five.

"Some 300 million children go to bed hungry every day. Of these only eight percent are victims of famine or other emergency situations. More than 90 per cent are suffering long-term malnourishment and micronutrient deficiency," the UN agency says on its website.

-AFP/fl

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'Destroyed' owner of burned club attempts suicide

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: A lawyer for the owner blames the fire department


• The club owner who attempted suicide is "emotionally destroyed," police say


• New patients are arriving at hospitals with respiratory symptoms


• The fire department says club was in the process of renewing its license

iReport: Are you there? Share your story.

Santa Maria, Brazil (CNN) -- One of the owners of the Brazilian nightclub that burned down this week, killing 235, tried to take his own life while in custody, police said Wednesday.

Elissandro Spohr is one of four arrested in the aftermath of Sunday's deadly blaze at the Kiss nightclub in Santa Maria, Brazil.

The suicide attempt happened while he was interned and under police guard at a hospital, where he is being treated for smoke inhalation, Santa Maria Police Chief Lylian Carus said.

While taking a shower, Spohr removed the shower hose and tied it to a window, but police discovered him before he placed the other end around his neck, Carus said.

"Everything indicates he was going to commit suicide by hanging," she said. "He's emotionally destroyed."

The residents of Santa Maria, in southern Brazil, have also suffered an emotional toll from the tragedy.

Opinon: We haven't learned from past mistakes

It seems to be all that people in the town talk about, and protestors have taken to the streets demanding justice.

In addition to Spohr, police arrested another owner of the club, Mauro Hoffman. Also in custody are the vocalist for the band performing that night, Marcelo de Jesus dos Santos, and show producer Luciano Bonilha.

During their performance, the band Gurizada Fandangueira used pyrotechnics that they knew were for outdoor use only, police have said. They opted to buy this particular firework because it was cheaper than the indoor-use kind, police said.

Kiss was filled well beyond its legal capacity with the crowd of 2,000 people, who packed the club to hear the band play.

When the pyrotechnics were set off, the ceiling caught fire, state officials said, and the flames spread quickly.

The crowd panicked, breaking into a stampede, and it hit a bottleneck -- the only exit was the front door, down a dark, narrow hallway.

More than 100 of the victims were students at the local Federal University of Santa Maria, the school said.

In addition to the ongoing criminal investigation, Santa Maria's public prosecutor announced that there will be a separate investigation to establish civil liability.

"The introduction of the civil investigation allows us to request documents and produce evidence to establish that kind of responsibility," public prosecutor Cesar Carlan said, according to state media. "We are, at this moment, watching the police work, where the evidence produced will be useful for our own inquiry."

Eerie sounds of cell phones amid disaster

New patients

In the days after the fire, about 20 more people who were at the club sought health services because of symptoms such as tiredness and breathlessness, Brazil's state-run Agencia Brasil news agency reported.

These new patients were hospitalized for observation and may require breathing aids.

Some 82 people remained in intensive care units, with 75 in critical condition, health officials said.

Club was renewing its license

Investigators said they found evidence of faulty and fake fire extinguishers at the club, which had expired fire and municipal licenses. The club's original license permitted just 691 people inside.

However, fire officials said that because the club was in the process of renewing its license, it was not required to be shut down.

Last September, the fire department notified the owners of the club about their expired permit, and in November, the club requested inspection for a renewal, fire official Sergio Roberto de Abreu said, according to Agencia Brasil.

The renewal request was pending at the time of the fire.

A lawyer for Spohr, the owner, not only said the club was operating legally, but also blamed the fire department for the mass casualties.

"It was a disastrous and poor operation by the fire department," attorney Jader Marques said, according to Agencia Brasil.

The firefighters weren't wearing proper masks and lacked proper equipment, he said. "Worse than that, the firefighters, feeling powerless, used civilians" to assist in the rescue.

Deadly blazes: Nightclub tragedies in recent history

Shasta Darlington reported from Santa Maria, and Mariano Castillo and Umaro Djau from Atlanta. CNN's Helena de Moura contributed from Santa Maria

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