LAS VEGAS, NV – JANUARY 07: Moshi Digits touchscreen gloves are displayed during the 2013 International CES Digital Experience media preview at the MGM Grand Conference Center on January 7, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. CES, the world’s largest annual consumer technology trade show, runs from January 8-11 and is expected to feature 3,100 exhibitors showing off their latest products and services to about 150,000 attendees. – AFP Photo

LAS VEGAS, Jan 11, 2013 - The folks who brought you laptop trackpads, voice-activated smartphones and touch-screen tablets are dreaming up new ways for users to interact with technology through wearable, fashionable gadgets.

The high-tech industry used the International Consumer Electronics Show to display things like high-tech fingernails, handbags, clothing and accessories for the iPhone generation.

The “nanonail,” for example, from a startup called Tech Tips, looks like a fingernail extension but is designed to work on smartphones and help avoid “fat finger” mistakes.

“The nail had to look nice, I didn’t want women to have to compromise,”said dermatologist Sri Vellanki, founder of the Montana-based company and inventor of the concept, who said she hopes to sell the product in a few months.

SunnyBag, a firm based in Austria, was showing its handbag equipped with flexible solar panels. The leather bag uses solar energy to charge a battery inside which can be used with a USB cord to recharge a smartphone.

“Our aim was to combine fashion with function,” said product manager Kerstin Kurre. “Every woman and a lot of men carry a bag, and everyone has battery problems.”The surge in the use of smartphones which can be used as music players has stimulated the creation of headphones which double as fashion accessories. Some on display at CES are integrated into caps or scarves.

Some headphones were being marketed as fashion items including one from iHip promoted by permatanned reality show star Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi with splashes of glittery faux-diamond plastic and leopard print.

Italian-based hi-Fun appeared to want to take a page from James Bond with high-tech gloves which can be used to speak on a smartphone.

The user can answer a call by activation a button inside the gloves and placing the thumb in the ear and index finger in front of the mouth to speak.

The “hi-Call” devices look like ordinary knit gloves, but are equipped with wireless connectivity. “Bluetooth is an easy technology, and works with most devices,” said Rick Sadofsky, a US distributor for the product.

CES also saw a spate of new wristwatch products, some powered by Android, which can access apps from a smartphone, some with emergency calling capacity.

The crowdfunded Pebble Technology watch can tell users when their bus is arriving, monitor one’s sleep and send data back through their smartphones to the Internet.

Italian-based i’m SpA, which last year debuted what it called the world’s first smart watch, unveiled a new version along with i’m Here, a GPS tracker that help mark out missing children, adventurers or adults with dementia.

Another wearable device came from US-based Vuzix, which offered a rival to Google Glasses with a device fitting around the forehead with a screen which connects to a smartphone.

But Vuzix’s David Lock said another device in the works is a real pair of glasses which also allows users to visualize what is on a smartphone or other mobile device.

“We see that as the holy grail,” Lock said.

CES also featured its own high-tech fashion show, with LED and illuminated dresses and corsets and accessories.

“We’re about to see an entire new industry take off based on high tech fashion,” said Robin Raskin, organizer of the show featured in the CES Living in Digital Times program.

“Fashion is soon to become personalized, elegant and useful and will remain a constant couture.”

Syria talks end in Geneva without solution

The UN Joint Special Representative for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, briefs the media after a meeting with Russian deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov and US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, unseen, to find a political solution for the crisis in Syria, at the European headquarters of the United Nations, in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday, Jan 11, 2013. – AP Photo

GENEVA: International envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said Friday that Russia seems as determined as the United States to end Syria’s civil war, but that he doesn’t expect a political solution to emerge anytime soon.    

Brahimi, who is the joint UN-Arab League envoy for Syria, spent the day at the United Nations’ European headquarters meeting with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns.

“We are all very, very deeply aware of the immense suffering of the Syrian people, which has gone for far too long. We all stressed the need for a speedy end to the bloodshed, to the destruction and all forms of violence in Syria. We stressed again that in our view, there was no military solution to this conflict,” Brahimi told reporters.

But he acknowledged that “if you are asking me whether a solution is around the corner, I am not sure that is the case. What I am certain of is that there is an absolute necessity for people to continue to work for such a peaceful solution, and that it is the wider international community, especially members of the Security Council that can really create the opening that is necessary to start effectively solving the problem.”

Brahimi’s five hours of talks with Bogdanov and Burns on Friday ended without any apparent deal. It was Brahimi’s second meeting in as many months with Bogdanov and Burns, who each left without making any public comments.

In December, Brahimi also met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to discuss Syria.

At the Security Council, the most powerful arm of the UN, Russia has joined China in blocking several resolutions aimed at pressuring Syrian President Bashar Assad, but Moscow says it is not propping up his regime.

Recently, top Russian officials have signaled they are resigned to Assad eventually losing power.    Brahimi defended Moscow’s role.

“I am absolutely certain that the Russians are as preoccupied as I am, as preoccupied as the Americans are, by the bad situation that exists in Syria and its continuing deterioration, and I am absolutely certain that they would like to contribute to its solution,” he said.

Brahimi, who didn’t comment on China’s response to Syria’s civil war, said the foundation for a political solution continues to be the agreement reached among major powers in Geneva in June, which called for creation of a new governing body for Syria that would “exercise full executive powers” during an unspecified transition period.

“And we agreed that full executive powers means all the powers of state,” Brahimi said of Friday’s discussions. “I will continue to engage all Syrian parties as well as other stakeholders in the region and internationally.”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in an interview with the Associated Press that he was pleased that Brahimi convened the meeting and “also encouraged that they are trying to bridge the gap on their differences, particularly how this transitional executive body will operate.”

“I know that there was some common understanding that this transitional executive power means all the powers of state,” he said. “I certainly hope that they will continue to discuss this matter.”

“It was not the breakthrough – but it is progress,” Ban said.    He said he spoke to Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby after the meeting and said Brahimi will come to New York later this month for talks with UN officials and the Security Council.

In Washington, US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters that “it’s hard to imagine how you would have a transitional government with Assad still part of it.”

The conflict began in March 2011 with peaceful protests against Assad’s family dynasty, which has ruled the country for four decades, but the intense crackdown on the uprising and armed rebel opposition soon became a civil war.

“According to our progress today, we said that this transitional government that will be in charge during the transitional period only. It is not a government that will stay for a long time. It will direct the transitional period that will end with the holding of the elections that will be agreed upon. During this transitional period, the transitional government has to enjoy complete powers and these complete powers are those of the whole state,” Brahimi said.

The UN says at least 60,000 people have been killed in the war and millions have fled their homes. So far, all international efforts to end the fighting have failed. Syria has complained that Brahimi exhibited “flagrant bias” after he called for real, not cosmetic, change in Syria and said Assad was resisting the aspirations of his people.

Brahimi took the criticism in stride. “I saw the statement by the Syrian government. They expressed their point of view, but at the same time they said that they are ready to continue cooperating with me,” he said.

He clarified his stance further.

“I said the Syrians are saying 40 years is enough — the Syrians,” he said. “I said the Syrian people are saying that 40 years is enough. And I never said that there will be no place for members of the government. I never said that.”

The UN refugee agency said Friday that it is concerned about the severe winter conditions faced by about 612,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt, and there has been no letup in the flow of thousands of people a day across the borders.

“Many of those arriving have been barefoot, with their clothing soaked, and covered in mud and snow,” agency spokesman Adrian Edwards told reporters in Geneva, referring to new refugee arrivals in Jordan.

PM orders delegation of policing powers to FC in Quetta

A woman sits with her children holding lighted candles during a protest against bomb blasts a day earlier in Quetta, organised by various non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Islamabad, Jan 11, 2013. — Photo by Reuters

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf on Saturday issued directives to delegate policing powers to the Frontier Corps (FC) in Quetta, DawnNews reported.

The premier issued the directives after a meeting with Interior Minister Rehman Malik.

The FC has been directed to assist the Balochistan government in maintaining peace and controlling the law and order situation in the province in the wake of the multiple bombings that have claimed the lives of over 100 people.

Furthermore, the prime minister directed Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira to immediately leave for Quetta in order to monitor the situation in the provincial capital.

Prime Minister Ashraf has moreover announced compensation of rupees one million for the heirs of each victim killed in the bombings and rupees 100,000 for each person injured in the explosions.

He moreover ordered that C-130s be sent to Quetta in order to shift the wounded to Karachi for medical treatment.

The premier has moreover directed Chief Minister Balochistan Aslam Raisani, who is currently abroad, to return to the country without further delay.

Sit-in continues in Quetta; HDP says provincial govt has failed

People chant slogans next to the bodies of their relatives awaiting burial, who were killed in Thursday’s deadly bombings in Quetta. — Photo by AP

QUETTA: The sit-in at Quetta’s Alamdar Road staged by hundreds of people from theHazara Shia community was ongoing on Saturday after the passing of nearly 20 hourssince it started, DawnNews reported.

The participants of the sit-in have refused to bury the dead until the army takes control of the provincial capital.

Police in Quetta had earlier said that the protest had ended, but Shia leader Ibrahim Hazara said Saturday that it would continue until the city was handed over to the army and the provincial government dismissed.

Some 50 coffins remain on the provincial capital’s Alamdar Road, the Associated Press reported.

Moreover, the Qaumi Yakjehti Council has announced that it would expand the perimeter of its protest to the cantonment check post.

Also on Saturday, the Hazara Democratic Party (HDP) took out a protest rally in Quetta against terrorist attacks in the city.

Participants of the rally held banners and placards condemning the recent unrest in Balochistan, including incidents of targeted killings, bomb blasts and other unrest.

The rally took various roads and routes and concluded near the office of Inspector General Balochistan Police.

The protesters said the provincial government had failed in establishing peace and law and order in the city and demanded that Quetta be handed over to the army.

The sit-in and protest comes in the wake of multiple bomb blasts in Quetta which claimed at least 104 lives. Eighty-six of those killed in the attacks were from the Hazara Shia community.

Policing powers delegated to FC

Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf on Saturday issued directives to delegate policing powers to the Frontier Corps in Quetta.

The premier issued the directives after a meeting with Interior Minister Rehman Malik.

The FC has been directed to assist the Balochistan government in maintaining peace and controlling the law and order situation in the province in the wake of the multiple bombings that have claimed the lives of over 100 people.

PM phones Governor Magsi

Prime Minister Ashraf telephoned Governor Balochistan Zulfikar Magsi and the two discussed the situation in Quetta in the wake of the multiple blasts.

The premier, in his call, directed the provincial governor to take all steps necessary to ensure the protection of the citizens’ lives and properties.

He added that the federal government was ready to assist the provincial government to ensure the citizen’s security.

Prime Minister Ashraf moreover said that those wounded in the wake of the attacks should be treated with maximum care.

PM directs CM Balochistan to return to Quetta

Prime Minister Ashraf on Saturday directed Chief Minister Balochistan Aslam Raisani, who is reportedly abroad, to return to Pakistan immediately.

The prime minister also directed Federal Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira to travel to Quetta without delay.

Altaf calls for protesters’ demands to be met

Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain on Saturday stated that the federal and Balochistan governments should immediately accept the demands put forth by the grieving relatives of those killed in the explosions in the provincial capital.

He added that not only should the governments pay heed to the demands of the protesters, they should also accept them and take steps to resolve their issues.

Hussain said it was “highly unfortunate” that “all political leaders and political parties were silent” when the relatives of those killed had been holding a sit-in with the bodies of their loves ones for the past 20 hours.

Islamabad court disposes of TMQ petition against harassment, arrests

In this Jan 9, 2013, photo, Tahirul Qadri speaks during an interview with the Associated Press in Lahore. — Photo by AP

ISLAMABAD: An Islamabad session judge on Saturday disposed of a petition filed by the Tehrik-i-Minhajul Quran(TMQ) over the alleged harassment and arrest by the police of the TMQ workers, DawnNews reported.

The district administration and the police had told the court that TMQ workers were neither being arrested nor harassed.

The Islamabad Chief Commissioner Tariq Mehmood Pirzada and Inspector General Islamabad Police Bani Amin Khan through their representatives assured the court that neither the district administration nor the police had either arrested or harassed the TMQ workers.

Assistant Commissioner Noman Yousuf, Assistant Commissioner Imran Ali Sultan and Advocate Rizwan Abbasi represented the district administration in the court, whereas, sub-inspector Abdul Sattar was present on behalf of Amin.

Earlier, petitioner Guftar Hussain advocate, who is president of the Pakistan Awami Tahrik, the political wing of the TMQ, had adopted before the court that the police and district administration were trying to harass the party’s workers.

He alleged that the district administration had on Thursday tried to dismantle the reception camp set up by the TMQ.

The petition had requested the court to restrain the respondents from harassing TMQ activists and creating obstacles in the long march.

Blast near ANP leader Shakeel Omarzai’s convoy; 12 injured

A policeman inspects a blast site in Charsadda. — File Photo

CHARSADDA: A bomb blast occurred near a convoy of Awami National Party (ANP) leader and member of provincial assembly (MPA) Shakeel Bashir Omarzai in the Charsadda district’s Omarzai tehsil on Saturday.

The incident took place near Hari Chand Road in Khan Ghari village of the tehsil.

Twelve people, including Shakeel Omarzai, his father and former MPA Bashir Omarzai and three police personnel who were part of Shakeel’s security detail were injured in the blast.

District Coordination Officer Zafar Ali Shah confirmed that 12 people were wounded in the attack, adding that none had sustained life-threatening injuries.

Some of the injured were shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital, Charsadda, whereas the remaining injured were transported to the Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar.

The blast was caused by a remote-controlled device, police sources said, adding that it was followed by heavy gunfire in the area.

The blast occurred when the convoy was returning from a local court where Bashir Omarzai had appeared for a hearing.

UN urged to refer Syria to war crimes court

A Free Syrian Army fighter holds his weapon as he prepares himself for advance, close to a military base, near Azaz. — AP Photo/File

BERLIN: More than 50 countries have backed a call for the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court, a move that would open the way for war crimes prosecutions.    

A draft of the letter obtained Friday by The Associated Press said the situation in Syria should be referred to the Hague-based war crimes tribunal ”without exceptions and irrespective of the alleged perpetrators”.

”At the very least, the council should send out an unequivocal message (…) announcing that it intends to refer the situation to the ICC unless a credible, fair and independent accountability process is being established in a timely manner” by Syria, it continued.

The letter cited the findings of a UN expert panel documenting summary executions, torture and sexual violence that has occurred since the start of the uprising in March 2011. It also noted repeated appeals by the UN’s top human rights official and resolutions by the global body’s Human Rights Council calling for ICC referral.

The draft letter was signed by Switzerland’s ambassador to the United Nations in New York on behalf of dozens of countries including Britain and France, two of the Security Council’s five permanent members.

The other three permanent members — the United States, China and Russia — had not signed the draft.

A spokesman for Switzerland’s UN mission in New York said the letter would be submitted to the Security Council on Monday.

Adrian Sollberger said Switzerland first proposed such a move in June 2012, and that it now had the backing of more than 50 countries from all regions of the world, giving the call sufficient political weight.    ’

‘The manifold allegations of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Syria must be investigated and those responsible among all the parties of the conflict must be brought before a court,” he said.

The Security Council is the only body that can refer Syria to the ICC because the country itself hasn’t ratified the international convention that established the tribunal.

The UN’s human rights office issued a report last week estimating that at least 60,000 people have died in Syria since the start of the conflict.