Blackberry would close service if ordered

Blackberry would close service if ordered-LONDON - BlackBerry said on Thursday it would work with mobile operators to switch off its popular messenger service if they were ordered by authorities to do so during civil unrest, after police singled out the system as a key tool used in last month's riots.

Appearing before politicians investigating the large-scale disorder that swept Britain in early August, executive Stephen Bates of Blackberry-owner Research in Motion said the company would comply with orders given in special circumstances such as threats of terrorism or mass criminality.

"From our perspective we comply with the law and if the instruction ... would be to close down the mobile networks which is the method by which that would be enacted, we would then comply, we would then work with those mobile operators to help them meet the obligations as defined by that act," Bates said.


Police and parliamentarians said at the time of the unrest that social media, in particular Blackberry Messenger (BBM), had been used by rioters and looters to incite and coordinate violence.

BBM appears to have been preferred over Twitter and other social media sites because its messages are encrypted and private.

Speaking when police were still grappling with nights of violence in London and other major English cities, Prime Minister David Cameron said Britain could consider disrupting online social networking during civil unrest.

Since then however, the government has said it was unlikely it would go that far, after the home secretary, Theresa May, met police and executives from RIM, Twitter and Facebook.

Bates said the company had a strong view that communications and social media were a force for good and it didn't see it "being a good way forward" to suspend social networks during periods of large-scale disorder.

Alexander Macgillivray, responsible for public policy at Twitter, told the committee it would be an "absolutely horrible idea" to do so, and quoted police as saying they used it for good during times of crisis.

Richard Allan, director of policy in Europe at Facebook, said social media allowed families and friends to know they were safe.

RIM has previously said it cooperates with local law enforcement and regulatory officials, but it has declined to say whether it would hand over chat logs or user details to police.

US Supreme Court asked to halt Texas execution

US Supreme Court asked to halt Texas execution-The U.S. Supreme Court halted the execution Thursday of a black man convicted of a double murder in Texas 16 years ago after his lawyers contended his sentence was unfair because of a question asked about race during his trial.

Duane Buck, 48, was spared from lethal injection when the justices, without extensive comment, said they would review an appeal in his case. Two appeals, both related to a psychologist's testimony that black people were more likely to commit violence, were before the court. One was granted; the other was denied.

Buck was sentenced to death for the fatal shootings of his ex-girlfriend and a man in her apartment in July 1995. Buck's guilt is not being questioned, but his lawyers say the jury was unfairly influenced and that he should receive a new sentencing hearing. His attorneys appealed to the Supreme Court and Texas Gov. Rick Perry to block the execution, saying a psychologist testified that black people were more likely to commit violence.


Buck's case is one of six convictions that then-Texas Attorney General John Cornyn — a political ally of Perry who is now a Republican U.S. senator — reviewed in 2000 and said needed to be reopened because of the racial reference. In the other five cases, new punishment hearings were held and each convict again was sentenced to die. State attorneys contend Buck's case was different from the others and that the racial reference was a small part of larger testimony about prison populations.

Perry is a capital punishment supporter and as frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination his actions now are coming under closer scrutiny. During his 11 years in office, 235 convicted killers in Texas have been put to death. His office said he has chosen to halt just four executions, including one for a woman who later was executed.

The reprieve from the nation's highest court came nearly two hours into a six-hour window when Buck could have been taken to the death chamber. Texas officials, however, refused to move forward with the punishment while legal issues were pending.

His lawyers called to tell Buck of the reprieve and the inmate was praying in his cell when Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark approached.

"Praise the Lord!" Buck told Clark. "God is worthy to be praised. God's mercy triumphs over judgment.

"I feel good."

In its one-paragraph decision, the court said it stopped the punishment so it could further look at Buck's request, known as a writ of certiori. If the court decided against the writ, the justices said the reprieve would be lifted, making Buck eligible for receiving a new execution date.

"We are relieved that the U.S. Supreme Court recognized the obvious injustice of allowing a defendant's race to factor into sentencing decisions and granted a stay of execution to Duane Buck," Kate Black, one of Buck's attorneys, said. "No one should be put to death based on the color of his or her skin. We are confident that the court will agree that our client is entitled to a fair sentencing hearing that is untainted by considerations of his race."

Buck was convicted of gunning down ex-girlfriend Debra Gardner, 32, and Kenneth Butler, 33, outside Houston on July, 30, 1995, a week after Buck and Gardner broke up. A third person, Buck's stepsister, Phyllis Taylor, also was wounded, though she has since forgiven Buck and sought for his death sentence to be commuted to life in prison.

Buck's attorneys went to the Supreme Court after losing appeals in lower courts. A clemency request to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, all of whom are Perry appointees, also failed.

Perry was not in the state Thursday, meaning any final order to delay would have come from Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. However the court's ruling meant neither Perry nor Dewhurst had to act on a request from Buck's lawyers that the governor use his authority to issue a one-time 30-day reprieve.

Assistant Attorney General Edward Marshall had told the Supreme Court on Thursday that Buck's appeals were attempts to relitigate claims that every court, including the Supreme Court, already rejected.

"The record in Buck's case reveals that no constitutional violation occurred during his sentencing trial," he told the justices.

The execution would have been the second this week and the 11th this year in Texas. Two more Texas prisoners are set to die next week.

UBS $2 b rogue trade suspect held in London

UBS $2 b rogue trade suspect held in London-Swiss bank UBS said it had lost around $2 billion due to rogue dealing by a London-based trader at the Swiss bank and police said they had arrested a man on suspicion of fraud.

Sources close to the situation named the suspect as 31-year-old Kweku Adoboli, who was working as UBS director of exchange traded funds and so-called Delta 1 trading, according to his profile on LinkedIn.

Adoboli was arrested during the night at UBS's London office, the sources told Reuters.



UBS said it discovered the problem on Wednesday afternoon, but gave no details of the alleged trades involved. Police said they had arrested a man on Thursday after being contacted by the bank and he was in custody .

Adoboli, a University of Nottingham computer science and management graduate, was described by a former landlord as a good tenant of a 1,000 pound ($1,600) per week apartment close to UBS in London's East End, where he lived until recently.

His father, John Adoboli, a retired United Nations employee from Ghana, said he knew the financial sector was a high risk area but he had no doubts about his son's competence and integrity.

"From what the reports are saying, it could be that he made a mistake or wrongful judgment," he told Reuters by phone from the Ghanaian port city of Tema, saying he had to speak to his son before drawing any conclusions.

"I've been calling his phone since and I am hoping he'd be granted bail soon so I can hear his side of the story," he said.

UBS stock ended the day down 10.8 percent, its lowest close since March 2009, after the bank said it might post a third-quarter loss due to the trading, a huge blow as it struggles to rebuild credibility after years of crises.

Late in the day, Moody's said it had placed the bank's long-term debt and deposit ratings on review for a possible downgrade, a further blow to the bank.

The loss effectively cancels out the 2 billion Swiss franc ($2.3 billion) saving UBS hoped to make in a cost-cutting drive detailed last month involving 3,500 job cuts.

It also threatens the future of UBS's investment bank, which is being reviewed by chief executive Oswald Gruebel as part of a wide-ranging restructuring after heavy losses during the credit crisis and a damaging scandal over bankers helping rich U.S. clients dodge taxes.

And it undermines claims by the Swiss bank and the industry that such events are a thing of the past.

UBS, which said no client positions were affected, is scheduled to hold an investor day on November 17 at which it was expected to announce a major overhaul of the investment bank.

"The matter is still being investigated, but UBS's current estimate of the loss on the trades is in the range of $2 billion," the bank said in a statement.

UBS employed almost 18,000 people in its investment bank at the end of June, most of them outside Switzerland, particularly in London and the United States.

"(This) is a staggering demonstration that all the clever systems that the banks now have, especially after the financial crisis, still cannot stop a determined individual getting round them if they want to," said Chris Roebuck, Visiting Professor at Cass Business School in London.

"It will yet again confirm to the majority of shareholders who are Swiss that investment banking is not 'proper' banking, as private banking is."

UBS had started to see client confidence return this year after it had to be rescued by the Swiss state in 2008 following massive losses on toxic assets held by its investment bank. The bank has had a history of major risk management glitches followed by repeated pledges to fix risk systems.

Kerviel

Any losses in UBS's investment bank risk scaring rich clients and prompting a further flight from its huge private bank, the core of its business that used to be the world's biggest wealth manager but has slipped to third place.

"This loss has the scope to have a material impact on the perception of UBS's private bank, impacting its future operating trends," Goldman Sachs analysts Jernei Omahen and Peter Skoog said in a note.

"Today's announcement therefore adds to the long list of arguments (and pressure) for a substantially smaller investment bank."

UBS's news caused disbelief among market operators.

The last similar case was when Jerome Kerviel, then a trader at Societe Generale, racked up a $6.7 billion loss in unauthorised deals revealed in 2008. Kerviel was sentenced to three years in prison in October 2010.

Both Kerviel and Adoboli were the same age when the scandal broke and both worked with so-called Delta 1 products, derivatives which closely track the underlying securities and give the holder an easy way to gain exposure to several asset classes. Examples include equity swaps, forwards, futures and exchange-traded funds.

"It is amazing that this is still possible," said ZKB trading analyst Claude Zehnder. "They obviously have a problem with risk management. Even when the amount isn't so high, it is once more a loss of confidence that casts UBS in a poor light."

Switzerland's financial markets regulator FINMA said it had been informed of the case and was in close contact with UBS, while a regulatory source said Britain's Financial Services Authority was in close contact with Swiss authorities.

Heads to roll?

The bank has in the past two years tried to rebuild the investment bank that nearly felled it during the financial crisis. It needed a state bailout after heavy losses on U.S. subprime mortgage-related securities.

Under Gruebel and investment bank boss Carsten Kengeter -- themselves both once traders -- it hired hundreds of traders in a bid to boost its bond business.

Several analysts said the incident made it more likely Kengeter would be in the firing line, while Gruebel could step down sooner rather than later.

"Gruebel saved the bank from destruction, so his main job is done. It is only a matter of time before he steps down. If it means he leaves a little sooner, it does not change a lot. But the investment bank is a bit of a disaster, and the knives will be out for Kengeter," said Peter Thorne, analyst at Helvea.

Former Bundesbank head Axel Weber is due to join the UBS board in May and take over as chairman in 2013.

The weak performance of the investment bank and tough capital rules in Switzerland had already attracted intense scrutiny over how UBS will cope. Analysts have called for a retrenchment, while Swiss politicians are debating how to make sure big banks can weather future crises without having to be bailed out by the state. ($1 = 0.870 Swiss franc)

Cruise ship fire kills 2 crew

AN explosion is thought to have sparked an "intense" fire in a cruise ship's engine room that killed two crew yesterday, injured nine people and forced more than 200 passengers to leave a liner off Norway's western coast.Smoke was billowing from MS Nordlys, of Norway's Hurtigruten line, as it pulled into the dock at Aalesund, 375 kilometers northwest of the capital of Oslo. Police cordoned off parts of the town as smoke engulfed nearby buildings.
The ship's emergency evacuation began shortly after the fire started at 9am. More than 100 passengers left in lifeboats while another 207 passengers and 55 crew disembarked at Aalesund. Some crew stayed aboard to fight the fire.Aalesund Hospital said nine people had been admitted, two with serious burns. Police said the injured and dead were crew members.

Acting police chief Yngve Skovly said: "Our suspicion is that there was an explosion in the engine room."
Passengers said the ship, which was traveling north from the city of Bergen, had organized an orderly evacuation.
"We were sent up on deck and given our life jackets," said French tourist Danielle Passebois-Paya. "It took only a few minutes after the alarm and we were in the lifeboats. It was a well-organized evacuation. The crew did a really good job. Everything was calm and went smoothly. There was no panic."
The chief of Aalesund's fire brigade, Geir Thorsen, described the fire as "big and intense." He added: "There are no indications the fire spread to other rooms in the ship."
More than six hours after the fire began, Thorsen said firefighters were now in control, but the ship was taking in water and listing.
"Our main challenge now is the stability of the ship," he said.
The MS Nordlys plies Norway's western coast on a popular 2,500km cruise between Bergen and Kirkenes, high above the Arctic Circle.

Wife dies breaking up fight between husband and son

Wife dies breaking up fight between husband and son-A Sydney woman has died after apparently trying to break up a fight between her husband and son, in what police describe as a "very sad" and "very tragic" incident.A 75-year-old man was fighting with his 36-year-old son at a house in Blackwall Point Road, Abbotsford, about 7.30pm yesterday, police said.Police said the 65-year-old woman was allegedly punched once on the head and chest by her husband when she tried to stop the fight.Officers arrived at the house as the fight continued in the front yard, but the woman refused medical treatment, police said.
An ambulance was called when she later suffered breathing difficulties, but she died at the house.
Her husband was arrested and taken to Burwood police station, where he was charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm.Burwood Local Area Command crime manager, Detective Inspector Ian Pryde, said the woman had a long medical history."The post-mortem is being conducted today; we don't know the cause of death ... however, she was communicating with police and she has collapsed."We would speculate that she has died as a result of her pre-existing medical condition.

"She suffered from breathing difficulties and she went into cardiac arrest."Detective Inspector Pryde would not reveal the cause of the argument."It's just one of those things - there's been a domestic and she's probably suffered from her pre-existing medical condition as a result of the high level of anxiety.
"It's very sad and it's very tragic."The husband was given bail and will appear in Burwood Local Court on October 7.The son was also arrested, but released without charge.
Police continue to investigate the circumstances of her death.

Water price rises set to flood in

Water price rises set to flood in-The price of water is set to rise for the average Sydney household by up to $166 a year over the next four years.Sydney Water today applied to the pricing regulator, the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal, to raise the household water bill by 15 per cent, plus inflation, to 2015/6.
The round of price rises will start in the middle of next year.Advertisement: Story continues below
If the price rises are granted, by 2015/6, the average household water bill will have risen to $1271 before inflation is taken into account.IPART usually approves the price rises requested.The proposed rises come hard on the heels of double-digit rises for electricity.Power bills for some households will rise by up to 18 per cent from July 1, before rises of at least another 10 per cent from mid-2012.The introduction of the carbon tax will push power prices up faster still in the future.

Sydney Water said it had also embarked on a new round of efficiency cuts to reduce its costs by a further $140 million, conceding that its costs in many areas are still higher than those of private companies.
Of the average rise in the annual water bill, $55 of the increase will be needed to replace old equipment, $45 to build new pipelines and the like for new housing and $41 will be needed to help the company recover lost revenues, officials said.Over the past two round of price rises allowed by IPART, from 2005/6 until 2011/12, Sydney Water has sold about 10 per cent less water than it forecast as a result of the drought.
This has left it with a large level of borrowings, which the company has to repay.
"Sydney Water's financial sustainability has deteriorated ... as a result of its inability to earn revenue that is at least sufficient to service debt and to generate a return for its owners," the company said in its submission to IPART.In the four years to 2011/12, water bills rose 35 per cent, largely for the $1.8 billion desalination plant at Kurnell, which now makes up one-fifth of the water company's annual costs. The last of these rises, 5.8 per cent, came into effect from July 1 this year.The cost of operating the Kurnell plant is eclipsed only by the high cost of treating waste water and sewage, which accounts for a third of the group's total expenses.
Even though Sydney's dams are 79 per cent full, the desalination plant is operating at maximum capacity, as it is "settled in" after starting operations last year.

Smokers don't make better lovers

Smokers don't make better lovers-A US study suggests that men who successfully stopped smoking improved on lab measurements of sexual health more than those who relapsed after a quit-smoking program, showing that smoking may be affecting the sexual health of men who consider themselves perfectly all right in bed, researchers said."With younger men, the risks of smoking in that population appear more far off. They think, 'I don't really need to worry about this until much farther down the road," said study author Christopher Harte, from the VA Boston Healthcare System, who published findings in the British Journal of Urology International."Regardless of if this really does apply to all men who smoke or not (the goal was) just getting the word out that men could be aware of this finding, so it could influence their decisions to start the quitting process," he told Reuters Health, though he did say the study was still not definitive.
Harte and co-author Cindy Meston from the University of Texas at Austin enrolled 65 men without self-reported importence in an eight-week quit smoking program using nicotine patches. Before treatment, halfway through and a few weeks after, they brought ithe men into a locked lab and showed them a racy film.

While they watched, men kept track of how aroused they were and a device measured how much their penis grew or shrank. Separately, they also filled out surveys about their sexual function outside of the lab, including questions about desire and sexual satisfaction.
By the end of the study, there were 20 men that hadn't lit up in at least a week, while 45 men were still smoking.Quitters saw a greater increase in penile growth, measured by width and not length, compared to non-quitters. By their own scoring, those men also reached their peak level of arousal sooner than men who were still lighting up.
However, men who had dropped the habit didn't report any sexual improvement in "real-life" settings, the researchers said. It's also possible that the improvements they saw in the lab may take time to translate to the bedroom."It might take longer for men to actually notice their level of difference subjectively outside of the lab, which is also dependent on their relationship with their sexual partner," Harte said.
While smoking has been linked to a host of other health problems such as cancer and heart disease, the researchers said their finding is a new angle for doctors to use with men who are still reluctant to try quitting.
Previous research has shown that long-term smokers are up to twice as likely to have impotence as non-smokers. Smoking can show blood vessel dilation, which is necessary to get an erection, said Lydia Bazzano, who has studied erectile dysfunction at the Tulane University Health Sciences Center.
Harte said the point of the study may be that the connection doesn't just apply to men with severe erectile dysfunction issues."The take-home point is that even men who don't have a clinical diagnosis of (erectile dysfunction) ... may still benefit from quitting smoking," he added.