Hamas cries victory; truce with Israel holds

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) ? Hamas leaders and thousands of flag-waving supporters declared victory over Israel on Gaza's first day of calm under an Egyptian-brokered truce Thursday, as Israeli officials flew to Cairo for talks on easing a blockade on the battered Palestinian territory.

Eight days of punishing Israeli airstrikes on Gaza and a barrage of Hamas rocket fire on Israel ended inconclusively. While Israel said it inflicted heavy damage on the militants, Gaza's Hamas rulers claimed that Israel's decision not to send in ground troops, as it had four years ago, was a sign of a new deterrent power.

"Resistance fighters changed the rules of the game with the occupation (Israel), upset its calculations," Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, who attended the rally, said later in a televised speech. "The option of invading Gaza after this victory is gone and will never return."

At the same time, Haniyeh urged Gaza fighters to respect the truce and to "guard this deal as long as Israel respects it."

The mood in Israel was mixed. Some were grateful that quiet had been restored without a ground operation that could have cost the lives of more soldiers. Others ? particularly those in southern Israel hit by rockets over the past 13 years ? thought the operation was abandoned too quickly.

Thousands of Israeli soldiers who had been sent to the border during the fighting withdrew Thursday, the military said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the offensive's aims of halting Gaza rocket fire and weakening Hamas were achieved. "I know there are citizens who were expecting a harsher response," he said, adding that Israel is prepared to act if the cease-fire is violated.

In a development that could complicate cooperation on the cease-fire, Israel on Thursday arrested an Arab-Israeli man connected to Hamas and Islamic Jihad on accusations he planted a bomb on a bus in Tel Aviv that wounded 27 people in the hours before the agreement was announced Wednesday, police said.

A Palestinian militant cell based in the West Bank village of Beit Lakiya dispatched the man, who lived in the village of Taybeh in Israel, to put a bomb on the bus, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. He then got off and called his handlers, who remotely detonated the explosive by calling the phone, Rosenfeld said.

"He admitted to carrying out the terrorist attack," said Rosenfeld, who declined to name the man.

Attacks by Israeli Arabs are rare, though they have happened in the past.

Nevertheless, the cease-fire raised hopes of a new era between Israel and Hamas.

A senior Israeli official and three aides arrived in Cairo late Thursday and were escorted to Egypt's intelligence headquarters, according to Egyptian airport officials, presumably to hammer out the details of a deal that would include easing a blockade of the territory.

The airport officials declined to be named because they were not authorized to give information to the media.

However, the vague language of the agreement announced Wednesday and deep hostility between the combatants made it far from certain the bloodshed would end or that either side will get everything it wants. Israel seeks an end to weapons smuggling into Gaza, while Hamas wants a complete lifting of the border blockade imposed in 2007, after the militant group's takeover of Gaza.

Israeli officials also made it clear that their position had not warmed toward Hamas, which they view as a terror group aligned with their archenemy Iran and pledged to the destruction of the Jewish state.

"Without a doubt, Israel in the long run won't be able to live with an Iranian proxy on its border," Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Israel's Channel 10. "As long as Hamas continues to incite against Israel and talk about destroying Israel they are not a neighbor that we can suffer in the long run. But everything in its time."

Israel launched the offensive Nov. 14 to halt renewed rocket fire from Gaza, unleashing some 1,500 airstrikes on Hamas-linked targets, while Hamas and other Gaza militants showered Israel with just as many rockets.

The eight days of fighting killed 161 Palestinians, including 71 civilians. Six Israelis, two soldiers and four civilians, were killed and dozens others wounded by rockets fired into residential neighborhoods.

Gazans celebrated the truce after a night of revelry.

"Today is different, the morning coffee tastes different and I feel we are off to a new start," said Ashraf Diaa, a 38-year-old engineer from Gaza City.

Hundreds of masked Hamas fighters appeared in public for the first time since the offensive during a funeral for five of their comrades. The armed men displayed grenade launchers and assault rifles mounted atop more than 100 brand-new pickup trucks.

The latest round of fighting brought the Islamists unprecedented political recognition, with foreign ministers from Turkey and several Arab states visiting ? a sharp contrast to Hamas' past isolation.

Israel and the United States, even while formally sticking to a policy of shunning Hamas, also acknowledged its central role by engaging in indirect negotiations with them.

Egypt emerged as the pivotal mediator, raising its stature as a regional power.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi will now have to assume a more direct role as a referee between Israel and Hamas, at a time when he faces many domestic challenges, including reviving a faltering economy.

Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and the head of the smaller Islamic Jihad militant group Ramadan Shalah met with Egypt's intelligence chief Thursday as the follow-up talks geared up.

Reaching a deal on a new border arrangement for Gaza would require major concessions from both sides.

Hamas wants both Israel and Egypt to lift all border restrictions.

In 2007, Israel and Morsi's pro-Western predecessor, Hosni Mubarak, sealed the territory, banning virtually all travel and trade. Israel eased its restriction somewhat in 2010 in response to international pressure, allowing Gazans to import consumer goods, while barring virtually all exports and travel. Gaza's battered economy recovered slightly, but the ban on exports prevented it from bouncing back fully.

After Mubarak's fall last year, Egypt eased travel through its Rafah crossing with Gaza. However, Morsi has rebuffed Hamas demands to allow full trade ties, in part because of fears this would give an opening to Israel to "dump" Gaza onto Egypt and deepen the split between Gaza and the West Bank.

Palestinians hope the West Bank and Gaza, which lie on opposite sides of Israel, will one day make up the bulk of a Palestinian state. Israel has barred most travel between them during the past decade and closer ties between Egypt and Gaza could exacerbate the division.

Israel, meanwhile, wants Egypt to halt weapons smuggling into Gaza through tunnels under the border. Hamas has been able to significantly boost its arsenal in the past four years, largely with weapons from Iran, according to Mashaal, who thanked Tehran for its support late Wednesday.

As part of the cease-fire, Israel received U.S. pledges to help curb arms shipments to Gaza.

The fighting gave a major boost to Hamas' popularity, not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank, where the Islamists' internationally backed rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, oversees a self-rule government.

Abbas, the leading Palestinian proponent of non-violence and negotiations with Israel, was forced to watch from the sidelines as his bitter rivals scored political points.

A senior Abbas aide, Nabil Shaath, stood alongside Hamas leaders during Gaza City's victory rally Thursday. Despite the symbolism, it was not clear whether the two sides would be able to mend their rift.

___

Associated Press writers Amy Teibel and Ian Deitch in Jerusalem, Aron Heller in Sderot, Israel, and Mohammed Daraghmeh in Cairo contributed reporting.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hamas-cries-victory-truce-israel-holds-134218000.html

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Xbox TV: New rumours detail AAA game-less Xbox 360 - Pocket-lint

Microsoft is rumoured to be working on an Xbox set-top box that would offer casual gaming and all the entertainment functions of the current console, but without the capability of playing traditional AAA games like Halo 4 or Assassin's Creed III.

According to "multiple sources" talking to gadget site The Verge, the console, which Pocket-lint suggested Microsoft should make and sell back in June, would be a smaller low-cost alternative to its Xbox console and allow the company to expand on its home entertainment offering to non-core gamers.

"We're told that the set-top box is part of a two-SKU strategy for Microsoft's next-generation of Xbox hardware that will be unveiled in 2013, with a release date ahead of the holiday shopping season," claims the site.

According to the site and its sources, the?Xbox 360 TV?will?"run on the core components of Windows 8 and support casual gaming titles rather than full Xbox games typically found on a dedicated console."

Supposedly, hardware specs aren't fully locked down.

On the rumours, Microsoft has issued the following statement: "Xbox 360 has found new ways to extend the console lifecycle by introducing controller-free experiences with Kinect and re-inventing the console with a new dashboard and new entertainment content partnerships. We are always thinking about what is next for our platform and how to continue to defy the lifecycle convention."?

The rumours tie in with a lengthy blog post from the firm that it published in June?ahead of the annual gaming conference, E3, in LA.

In it, Yusuf Mehdi, chief marketing officer for the company's Interactive Entertainment Division,?said the console would move away from being just that.

READ:?Nintendo Wii U, Xbox SmartGlass and PS Vita: second screen entertainment explored

"To date, our success with Xbox has been led by a box in the living room. Moving forward, Xbox will go beyond the box to reach all new families of devices. Just as Xbox has grown to mean more than just games, it also is more than just a console. This year, Xbox becomes the premium entertainment service for Microsoft.

"Whether on your PC, tablet, TV or phone, Xbox will be a gateway to the best in music and video, your favourite games and instant access to your friends. With the launch of Windows 8, we?ll bring Xbox entertainment to everyone. With Xbox on Windows 8 devices, we rapidly accelerate the reach of Xbox entertainment from more than 60 million people to hundreds of millions of people worldwide."

Mehdi went on to say, "We understand that entertainment has become a multi-screen experience where you and your friends are watching TV, listening to music, and playing games while interacting with your tablets and phones in new ways. We?ve got ideas for making all the entertainment you love more personal, interactive and social across the devices you love - and on the phenomenal Windows 8 devices that are to come."

READ:?Xbox Entertainment: Games, Video, Music, SmartGlass on all your Microsoft devices

Shortly after those comments, Microsoft launched among other things, Xbox SmartGlass, its tablet and smartphone app that allows users to interact with the console.

We suspect that?SmartGlass?would be a key element of a set top Xbox TV box and save Microsoft needing to include a controller with the TV only device, and allow it to drive prices down even further.

Currently in the US there are two TV on-demand boxes that dominate the market; Roku and Apple TV, although Google is also trying to gain market share with Google TV. Roku, which launched in the UK in January this year, sees it as a core business, while Apple still sees the miniature set-top-box as a sideshow.

If Microsoft is about to enter the market, things could get a lot more interesting.

Source: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/48506/xbox-tv-2013-planned-launch

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NAMI-NAMI: a food blog: My recipes in Home & Garden (Kodu ...

Here's a short overview of the recipes I chose and cooked for the November 2012 issue of the Home and Garden (Kodu ja Aed) magazine, as the magazine's new editor of the food section. If you read Estonian and are based in Estonia, then you can get the magazine at all newsstands until the end of the month.

The photos are by Juta K?barsepp, who also helped with styling. The props are my own or from my friend Kristiina :)

November is a dark and chilly time in Estonia. There's usually no snow yet, so nothing to reflect back the little light we have during this month (and trust me, there's not much light). However, there are still some things to light up the life during this month - Fathers' Day is celebrated during the second Sunday in November, and there are some folk calendar events as well. (And our little family gets to celebrate my dear K's birthday?and the birth of our?third child). I was thinking of the Father's day lunch or dinner when planning this menu, yet it'd be perfect for any autumnal family gathering.

For starters, I chose the silky butternut squash soup with a pinch of nutmeg, accompanied by home-made roasted onion grissini. I've blogged about the soup here on Nami-Nami foodblog?in October 2008, and I still highly recommend the recipe. The recipe for roasted onion grissini is originally from an Estonian foodblogger K?trin, but I've modified it slightly over the last year or two.

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For the main course I chose something autumnal and gutsy. Rabbit has become more easily available here in Estonia for an average shopper (read: you can get it vacuum-packed in your local supermarket), and this rabbit stew with a creamy mustard sauce is an excellent way of cooking rabbit. The recipe is French-inspired and adapted from Anthony Demetre, the chef patron at the London restaurants Arbutus, Wild Honey and Les Deux Salons, more specifically, from his book Today's special: A new take on bistro food - Recipes from Arbutus and Wild Honey. Demetre uses rabbit legs, but for a home cook, using a whole rabbit makes much more sense - and is much more economical, of course.

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?As for the perfect autumn dessert, you cannot go wrong with a classic apple crumble - something that's actually not particularly well-known in Estonia (we're more cake and pie and tart type of people, I guess). I served the crumble with a cinnamon and cream cheese whipped cream - a wonderfully aromatic addition to the crumble.

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Check out the October 2012 recipes as well.

Source: http://nami-nami.blogspot.com/2012/11/my-recipes-in-home-garden-kodu-aed.html

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Feds Argue Injury Needed to Sue Consumer Financial Agency - The ...

It's not enough to dislike the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau - if you want to try to dismantle it via a lawsuit, first you need to suffer an actual injury because of it.

That, in essence, was the argument made by the federal government in a motion to dismiss a suit filed by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Texas bank, the 60 Plus Association and three states for lack of standing.

"Despite the roving allegations of unconstitutionality set forth in the Amended Complaint, not one of the statutorily authorized actions that Plaintiffs speculate might someday cause them harm has yet occurred," states the motion, which lists an eye-popping 29 government lawyers as counsel and was signed by Wendy Doty, a trial attorney in the Justice Department's federal programs branch. "Because Plaintiffs have failed to allege any actual or imminent injury?Plaintiffs will suffer no hardship at this time in the absence of judicial intervention."

In June, the CEI, the bank and the 60 Plus Association filed suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Represented by O'Melveny & Myers partner Gregory Jacob and C. Boyden Gray of Boyden Gray & Associates, the plaintiffs challenged "the unconstitutional formation and operation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau," as well as the recess appointment of CFPB head Richard Cordray.

They argued that the CFPB's "unbounded powers" violate the Constitution, and that the agency's authority to go after "unfair, deceptive, or abusive" acts or practices "creates a cloud of regulatory uncertainty that forces banks to censor their own offerings."

In September, the states of Michigan, Oklahoma and South Carolina joined the suit, but limited their attack to the Financial Stability Oversight Council's ability to designate certain large nonbank financial companies as "systemically important." They argue this "signals that the selected companies have the implicit backing of the federal government?and, accordingly, an unfair advantage over competitors." They also objected to the government's "orderly liquidation authority" to take over such an entity as an alternative to bankruptcy or bailout.

In its motion to dismiss, the government forcefully attacked each plaintiff's ability to bring suit due to lack of injury.

State National Bank of Big Spring in Texas, for example, claimed it was injured because the chilling effect of CFPB authority led it to exit the mortgage lending business. But the government pointed out that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, not the CFPB, is the only entity with the authority to enforce "unfair, deceptive, or abusive" prohibitions against the bank?the CFPB can only make recommendations.

Likewise, the bank claimed it stopped providing remittance transfers due to CFPB regulations that have not gone into effect. But the CFPB's authority here comes from the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, not the "unfair, deceptive, or abusive" standard. The bank "cannot utilize an alleged injury caused by one statutory grant of authority to challenge an entirely distinct grant of authority," the government wrote.

The bank also claimed it would be injured if the Financial Stability Oversight Council were someday to designate a competitor as systemically important. Such an injury is "layered upon speculation that this competitor will receive a cost-of-capital advantage from its creditors as a result of the designation (no entities have received such a benefit), layered upon speculation that this cost-of-capital advantage will outweigh the costs associated with heightened federal regulation (not yet finalized)."

As for CEI, the government argued it lacks standing "because it alleges only that it holds accounts at financial companies that might be subject to Bureau or Council authority. CEI alleges no facts demonstrating that the alleged constitutional violations have impaired anything other than its abstract interest in the constitutional separation of powers."

The 60 Plus Association fares no better. "It has failed to identify at least one member whose account has been affected by the challenged provisions of the Act or by Director Cordray's appointment. Even if it could identify such a member, the link between any changes to the member's account by its financial institution and any alleged constitutional infirmity is far too attenuated to sustain the organization's standing," according to the government.

The government also said the states have no grounds to sue. "Their theory that the orderly liquidation authority - which has never been invoked - may be applied to a financial company of which their pension funds are allegedly creditors is pure conjecture."

Still, the CEI remains undaunted. Constitutional litigation, said Sam Kazman, the group's general counsel in written a statement, "is not a matter of closing the barn door after the horses have bolted and rampaged the town. We believe that the issues raised in this case are ripe, and that plaintiffs are entitled to adjudicate them. And our basis for saying this will be fully set out in our response to the government's motion."

Source: http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2012/11/doj-argues-injury-needed-to-sue-consumer-financial-agency-.html

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"Good" and "bad" Salvador Dali finally meet

PARIS (AP) ? A major retrospective of Salvador Dali in Paris aims to rewrite the art history books, reconciling for the first time the last decades of his life ? when he was accused of money-making self-publicity through numerous television appearances ? with his earlier, respected Surrealist period.

The Pompidou Center exhibit, which opens Wednesday, brings together 120 paintings, from his famed 1931 work "The persistence of memory," featuring melted clocks, to later work that's normally shunned by critics: in TV shows, ads, films and work featuring celebrities like Mae West.

The surrealists said "that there was basically a good Dali, the surrealist, and a bad Dali, from 1939 on," said curator Jean-Michel Bouhours. "But the popular TV years were hugely influential on art. He was the initiator of pop art."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/good-bad-salvador-dali-finally-meet-112340270.html

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Robin Roberts: I?m Getting a Second Chance at Life

The road to recovery has been hard for Good Morning America host Robin Roberts, but it's one that she continues to walk with optimism. The 51-year-old recently had to return to the hospital for a "tune-up" following her Sept. 20 bone marrow transplant, and it turns out that visit took a toll on her.

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/robin-roberts-recovering-her-bone-marrow-transplant/1-a-503465?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Arobin-roberts-recovering-her-bone-marrow-transplant-503465

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In House With Tilly and the Wall: 'Heavy Mood,' Families & Conor ...

Noam Galai, AOL

Talking to Tilly and the Wall feels more like talking to a family than a band. After 10 years together, the group of five are tight-knit and welcoming, relating stories and exchanging knowing smiles with an ease that one mainly sees within a band that's truly happy. Of course, two of their members, Jamie and Derek Pressnall, are really family, but the band as a whole has been challenged by the constraints of growing up and being parents.

Jamie, who recently had her second baby, has been a lynchpin for the band since its inception as the resident tap-dancer, handling most of the percussive elements in place of a traditional drummer.

"For this record, I was sampled in it a lot and my parts are like really repetitive and really rhythmic and really simple. I was pregnant and on bed rest while we recorded it, which is why I was sampled," she says with a laugh.

Both Jamie and vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Kianna Alarid were pregnant during the writing and recording of the group's fourth full-length Heavy Mood, which came out earlier this year. But despite their growing families, all the members of the band reflect a commitment to pursuing their own artistic passions in addition to being parents.

"Like having a kid, some people go this route where they focus on the child, all their life focus on the child. And obviously that's part of it, but it has sort of been an eye-opening thing like 'OK, I have to do my thing right now," Kianna says. "Because it's urgent that my daughter has a mom that shows her exactly what she should do, especially as an artist. If a child sees that you have something to say and you're creating art and releasing it all the time, then that's what she's going to grow up to do."

Check Out More Exclusive Photos of Tilly and the Wall

Even as they become parents, the band members still know how to get down and party. Reflecting on their past touring with Conor Oberst, a great friend and huge supporter of the band from the beginning, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Neely Jenkins relates a near uprising at a show in Ohio.

After the musicians unfortunately arrived late to the venue, the workers ended Oberst's set early by literally pulling the plug on him. Both the crowd and Oberst rebelled against this perceived injustice, a situation that quickly escalated.

"So Conor goes to the front of his stage with his acoustic, and he's like 'I'm just going to play for you guys. Move forward so you can hear me.' So he just plays and it was awesome," Jenkins says. "And we were all drunk and we went out on stage and started chanting about how we were never coming back to this club because they were treating him bad and trying to kick him out. Then we tried to escape the chaos and went out into this alley, but all the kids came out there too and still wanted more! So Conor was like, 'Hey, Neely, want to get up on top of the van and sing a song?' And I was like, 'fuck yeah, I want to get on top of the van!'"

The story concludes with the typical police shutdown and an unfortunate loss for Oberst, who misplaced a personal item in the midst of the confusion -- a paper bag that contained checks, cash and a handle of vodka.

"Conor calls and was like, 'Hey, is there a paper bag full of like money and alcohol and checks?' And we were looking around and we were like, "No, we don't see anything and they left like thousands, tens of thousands of dollars in a paper bag, with a bottle of vodka sticking out the top. Cash, checks, party in a bag. On the side of the road," Jenkins relates.

Despite his affinity for rebellion and partying, the band also cite Oberst as an irreplaceable factor in their success. His record label, Team Love, has put out all four of their records and gives them complete artistic freedom to create whatever music they feel reflects their vision. Not only that, but touring as his opening act won them plenty of fans.

"He was so supportive and has helped us every step of the way," vocalist/guitarist Derek Pressnall says. "He's always been a really great friend, one of our first fans really."

Kianna adds that freedom in the recording and writing process has been incredible. "They don't care what we're doing. They're like give us an album, we'll put it out. They trust us."

"He popped in during the recording session and was like, 'This is interesting!'" says keyboardist/pianist Nick White, who has also toured extensively with Bright Eyes, Oberst's primary musical project.

As the group starts reminiscing over more memories of recording and writing songs, or when they first met Oberst in the midst of the blossoming Omaha music scene, it becomes almost impossible to trace the thread of their shared conversation. One thing they agree on is they never saw themselves as artists or formed with the intent of making music a lifestyle -- it just happened organically.

"The way we came up, like we are not like 'musician' musicians. I don't know how we became a band, really. I mean it was like we were just fucking around and hanging out with each other. We weren't like, 'Ah, I'm fucking good at the guitar,'" Derek says.

Kianna echoes his sentiments, sharing her struggle to define herself as an artist, but with this most recent album finally owns it.

"I never ever would call myself an artist. I felt very awkward when somebody would say 'as an artist ... ' I would even say in interviews, 'Well, I'm not really an artist.' I just wouldn't own it because I didn't know what it really meant and as you realize that it is what you do, you realize what power it holds -- that you can actually infuse your soul into something and communicate to a different person. So I feel like with this album, you can tell that we have a message and we have a platform that we've built over 10 years."

After a decade, Tilly and the Wall have cemented their message as a band that is unafraid to change and unafraid to remain undefined. Even as they continue to grow into their roles, the possibility for artistic metamorphosis remains the one constant in their sound.

"This album just feels like a continuation," White says. "I don't think the root of the band's sound has changed, but the way it's executed has changed. We established that we're not afraid to do any style song. Nothing is off the table for the band."

Source: http://www.spinner.com/2012/11/20/tilly-and-the-wall-heavy-mood-conor-oberst/

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