Witness saw Iranians arrest missing US man

Witness saw Iranians arrest missing US man
Facebook hires French artificial intelligence guru
Bachelet wins Chile presidential run-off
22 dead as bus plunges off Philippine highway
US Navy helicopter crashes in Japan
Clash in Xinjiang kills 16, including cops

Posted: 16 Dec 2013 04:52 PM PST

A retired FBI agent who vanished six years ago in Iran, reportedly during a covert CIA operation, was arrested by authorities in the Islamic state, the last person to see him alive was quoted as saying on Monday.

In an interview with the Christian Science Monitor, Iran-based American fugitive Dawud Salahuddin said Iranian agents had detained Robert Levinson during a meeting between the two men on the island of Kish in 2007.

Salahuddin, a convert to Islam who has lived in Iran since carrying out a 1980 murder in the United States on behalf of the Tehran regime, said Levinson had been trying to recruit him as an informant before his arrest.

"They took me away, and when I left ?- we were down in the lobby ?- Levinson was surrounded by four Iranian police," Salahuddin said.

US officials have long maintained that Levinson was merely a businessman on a trip overseas when he disappeared.

However US media reports last week said Levinson was in fact working for the Central Intelligence Agency on a secret mission to gather intelligence.

Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif denied all knowledge of Levinson's whereabouts on Sunday, insisting his fate was "a mystery" and that he was not incarcerated by Iranian authorities.

However Salahuddin, wanted for murder in the United States after killing a critic of Iran's revolutionary regime 33 years ago, insisted Levinson had been taken into custody by Iranian agents after the two men met at the Maryam Hotel on Kish on March 9, 2007.

He said the recent evidence suggesting Levinson was working for the CIA, and was not a legitimate businessman, might now enable Iran to release him.

"It allows the Iranians to justify all their lies for all these years because they had an actual intelligence operative, which is quite valid," Salahuddin was quoted as saying.

Salahuddin meanwhile denied suggestions he had orchestrated Levinson's arrest.

"I?ve seen all those things, that I set the guy up and all that. Listen, I don't do things like that — that's not a part of my makeup," he said.-AFP

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Facebook hires French artificial intelligence guru

Posted: 16 Dec 2013 04:49 PM PST

Professor Yann LeCun, who is currently lecturing at NYU's Center for Data Science, has been studying AI for decades.

While for now Facebook feeds may seem like a random jumble, LeCun argues these "can be improved by intelligent systems."

"This could include things like ranking (the items in) news feeds, or determining the ads that are shown to users, to be more relevant," he told AFP.

"Then there are things that are less directly connected, like analyzing content, understanding natural language and being able to model users… to allow them to learn new things, entertain them and help them achieve their goals."

'Limited by the number of smart people in the world'

Facebook is the world's biggest social network; but like all web services, it faces the challenge of maintaining growth, keeping users engaged and delivering enough advertising to generate revenue without annoying its users.

LeCun said the new artificial intelligence lab would be the largest research facility of its kind in the world, though he declined to provide numbers.

"We're limited only by how many smart people there are in the world that we can hire," the Paris-born mathematician and computer scientist said.

The lab will be based in three locations – New York, London and at Facebook's California headquarters.

But it will also be part of the broader artificial intelligence research community, according to LeCun, who starts his new job in January while keeping his NYU post.

Facebook's move follows Google's forays into artificial intelligence, and notably its acquisition earlier this year of DNNresearch, a start-up created by University of Toronto professor Geoffrey Hinton and two of his graduate students, known for computer models of brain functions, which includes pattern and speech recognition.

Getting computers to 'think'

AI can help computers "think" in ways similar to humans and help solve problems. In one famous example, IBM's Watson computer beat human contestants in the TV trivia game "Jeopardy."

Computer scientists have been developing AI for decades, Professor Tristan Cazenave of the Paris Dauphine University told FRANCE 24.

"We've been studying this discipline, which involves simulating how the human brain functions then analysing the results, since the early 1970s," the artificial intelligence expert said. "You find AI applications everywhere, from the military, logistics, marketing, video games and even medecinze."

LeCun's recent research projects include the application of "deep learning" methods for visual scene understanding, driverless cars and small flying robots, as well as speech recognition.

James Hendler, who heads the Rensselaer Institute for Data Exploration and Applications, told AFP that Facebook already uses some artificial intelligence algorithms for its "social network graph," but that applying these to photos, videos and other "multimedia" data requires a boost in power.

"As they move into their own search and more of these new multimedia data types, they need more," Hendler said.

"I expect that it will in the short term mainly focus on improving existing algorithms, for example, better selection of what shows up in a user's Web feed.

"In the long run, we should see a lot more capabilities such as searching for photos of things one might be interested in, and more information in Facebook that results from your activities on other websites."-(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

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Bachelet wins Chile presidential run-off

Posted: 16 Dec 2013 02:58 PM PST

Former leader swept back to office after defeating conservative rival Evelyn Matthei in a landslide win

SANTIAGO: Socialist Michelle Bachelet easily trounced her conservative rival yesterday and was swept back into Chile's presidency on a platform of narrowing the gap between the rich and poor.

One of the first challenges for Bachelet, who was president 2006-2010, will be to dampen the soaring expectations for quick changes as Chile's booming economy loses steam with Asian demands for Chile's copper diminishing.

Bachelet defeated conservative Evelyn Matthei in a landslide, 62 per cent to 38 per cent, according to official returns. The race marked the first time in Latin America that a presidential runoff was held between two women.

"Chile, now, finally, the time has come to carry out the changes," Bachelet, joined by her children and mother Angela Jeria, told cheering supporters in Santiago shortly after her resounding victory.

The 62-year-old president-elect takes office March 11 to succeed conservative billionaire President Sebastian Pinera for a term running through 2018.

This is a 'historic' moment for Chile, Bachelet said, because the country "has decided that this is the time to carry out far-reaching reforms" such as free post-secondary education, raising taxes and adopting a new, more modern constitution.

Bachelet praised the thousands of student protesters who, starting in 2011, held massive street protests demanding free, quality university education.

"Money is not what should be driving education. Education is not merchandise. Dreams are not something that you go out and buy; everyone has the right to have them," Bachelet said.

"It isn't going to be easy" to carry out the necessary social and economic changes, Bachelet said. "But since when was it ever easy to change the world for the better?"

In this second term Bachelet will have a chance to cement her legacy as a transformative leader with reforms aimed at overhauling the constitution and the government structure, a legacy of the 1973-1990 military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

Matthei, 60, and Bachelet, 62, are both daughters of Air Force generals and knew each other as schoolgirls.

But while Bachelet's father died after being tortured for remaining loyal to leftist president Salvador Allende in the 1973 coup, Matthei's father supported the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

Bachelet was also tortured, fled the country, then returned years later to work as a pediatrician, eventually entering politics.

High stakes for Bachelet's second term Bachelet focused her 2013 campaign on promises of greater social justice in a country that has the highest per capita income of any Latin American country.

She has proposed increasing taxes to raise US$8.2 billion for the state coffers, and wants to provide universally free access to post-secondary education.

As part of her ambitious reform agenda, Bachelet hopes to bring Chile in line with a wave of social liberalism spreading across once-conservative Latin America, including by legalising abortion and opening discussions on same-sex marriage.

But she has also complained that four years will not be enough to meet all of the high expectations for reform.

Even the students that she praised did not all support her: the more radical leaders say they mistrust her and called for their followers to abstain from voting.

They are also organizing a mass protest, along with environmentalists and gay rights groups, scheduled to be held four days after Bachelet takes office.

"For Bachelet it will be very complicated handling the high expectations created around her government," political scientist Cristobal Bellolio told AFP.

Bachelet is also inheriting an economy that is losing steam after some five years at a five per cent growth rate. Growth next year is forecast at between 3.75 and 4.75 per cent.

Chile is the world's top copper producer, and demand for copper has decreased in China, its main client.

In her first term, Bachelet reformed the pension system, improved health and social services, and focused on the well-being of Chile's working class and elderly.

Her first term also coincided with a boom in global demand for copper.

Matthei, saddled with a divided conservative movement, promised during her campaign to improve the lives of Chile's middle class.

But she was too closely linked to Pinera, a deeply unpopular president, and her complaints that Bachelet's leftist ideas were "experiments that have failed in other countries" had little appeal.

The final vote results were the worst for any Chilean conservative candidate since democracy was restored in 1990.

Congratulations to the president-elect poured in from leaders across Latin America. — AFP

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22 dead as bus plunges off Philippine highway

Posted: 16 Dec 2013 02:57 PM PST

MANILA: Twenty-two people were killed when a commuter bus plunged from an elevated highway onto a delivery van in Philippine capital Manila yesterday, police said, warning the death toll could rise.

Twenty of those who died in the accident in the sprawling city were on board the bus, with the other two fatalities from the van, traffic investigator Jose Abuyog said.

A further 20 people were injured when the bus fell six metres from the highway onto the road below.

"It (the death toll) could go even higher," as some of the injured are in serious condition, he told AFP, adding that the cause of the accident was still being determined.

Police spokeswoman Elizabeth Velasquez told reporters at least a dozen bodies had been pulled from the twisted debris of the overturned bus, .

The bus driver, who survived, will undergo tests and questioning, said land transportation regulatory board chairman Winston Ginez.

Don Mariano Transit, the bus company involved in the accident, has been suspended for 30 days as its other vehicles are examined, Ginez told ABS-CBN television, saying it had figured in an unspecified number of road accidents since 2011.

One witness Philippine radio she saw the bus speeding past moments before the crash.

"I was driving at 80 kph because it was still dark and raining when this bus overtook us," the woman, who gave her name as Irene, told dzMM radio.

"It was probably running at more than 100 kph. "Minutes later, I saw the bus fell off the highway. The railings on the highway were also gone."

The Philippines is notorious for its poor traffic safety record, as well as for its snarling lines of traffic in major cities.

In 2011, the Asian Development Bank said nearly 1,900 people had been killed in more than 85,000 road accidents in the Philippines. — AFP

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US Navy helicopter crashes in Japan

Posted: 16 Dec 2013 02:57 PM PST

TOKYO: A US navy helicopter crashed near Tokyo yesterday in a failed emergency landing, injuring two of the four men on board, rescuers said.

Television footage showed the grey helicopter on its side on what appeared to be vacant land, with mangled propellors and a snapped tail-end.

The accident came at a sensitive time, with the Japanese public wary over the long-planned but stalled relocation of a US base in southern Okinawa.

Around half of the 47,000 US service personnel in Japan are based on the strategically located island chain, which is nearer to Taiwan than it is to Tokyo.

Accidents, crime and noise associated with the bases make them locally unpopular, although Japanese people as a whole welcome the US defence umbrella they help to provide.

Yesterday's crash happened mid-afternoon in Miura city, roughly 60 kilometres south of Tokyo, said a local fire department spokesman.

One crew member told local authorities that the helicopter experienced a transmission problem, national broadcaster NHK said.

"One person broke a thigh. Another person suffered a contusion on his thigh. The remaining two apparently escaped any injury," he said.

The accident did not cause a fire and the rescue operation ended quickly with the injured men taken to a local civilian hospital in neighbouring Yokosuka, home to a major US naval base. — AFP

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Clash in Xinjiang kills 16, including cops

Posted: 16 Dec 2013 02:56 PM PST

BEIJING: Sixteen people were killed in a clash in China's restive Xinjiang region, home to the mostly Muslim Uighur minority, reports and activists said yesterday, less than two months after a fiery attack in Tiananmen Square.

Police attempting to detain criminal suspects in Shufu county near the Silk Road city of Kashgar, deep in far western China, were attacked by several 'thugs' armed with explosive devices and knives, reported the tianshannet news portal, which is run by the Xinjiang government.

Two police officers were killed and 14 of the 'thugs' shot dead on Sunday, it said, adding that two criminal suspects were detained.

But an overseas Uighur rights group said police had broken into a house where members of the ethnic minority were 'gathering' and opened fire first.

All 14 people killed by police were Uighurs and two of them were minors, Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, told AFP.

"The abusive use of force by authorities in the area has deprived the Uighurs of their right to live," he said.

The incident comes less than two months after an attack in Tiananmen Square, the symbolic heart of the Chinese state, when according to police, three Xinjiang Uighurs ploughed into crowds of tourists, killing two people and injuring 40, before crashing outside the Forbidden City and setting their vehicle ablaze.

All three attackers — named by authorities as Usmen Hasan, his wife and his mother — died.

Beijing described the assault, the first blamed on Uighurs outside Xinjiang, as 'terrorism' and said separatists backed by the militant East Turkestan Islamic Movement were responsible.

But outside experts pointed to the unsophisticated nature of the attack and the lack of an established Islamist extremist foothold in China.

Xinjiang, a vast area bordering Pakistan and Central Asia beyond the furthest reaches of the Great Wall, has followed Islam for centuries.

For years it has seen sporadic unrest by Uighurs which rights groups say is driven by cultural oppression, intrusive security measures and immigration by China's Han majority, but Beijing attributes to religious extremists, terrorism and separatism.

China's foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the latest incident 'shows once again the anti-human and anti-society nature of the terrorist groups'.

"This kind of attempt will not win public support and is doomed to failure," she told reporters at a regular briefing.

Authorities in Kashgar were not immediately available for comment when contacted by AFP.

In the worst outbreak of sectarian violence in recent years, around 200 people died and more than 1,600 were injured and hundreds arrested in riots in the regional capital Urumqi in 2009.

A total of 11 people — nine attackers and two auxiliary police officers — were killed in an attack on a police station in Serikbuya township near Kashgar last month, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Another incident in June in the Turpan area left 35 people dead, and 139 people have been arrested in recent months for spreading jihadist ideology.

Information in the area is tightly controlled and difficult to independently verify.

In August, a Chinese policeman was killed in an incident in Yilkiqi described by state media as an 'anti-terrorism' operation, but overseas media said 22 Uighurs were shot dead in the confrontation.

More than 190 'terrorist' attacks were logged in Xinjiang last year, rising 'by a significant margin' from 2011, state media reported last month.

Most of the attackers were in their early 30s or younger and increasingly act in small groups or individually as 'a lone wolf', they added.

At a meeting last week, top Turpan officials said violent 'terrorists' remained active in the area despite the authorities' 'strike hard with high pressure' campaign, according to a statement posted on a government site. They ordered local officials to chart a 'relationship tree' of links between students in Turpan and those overseas, it said.

China arrested more than 1,000 people for 'endangering state security' — a charge commonly brought against ethnic minorities — in 2012, up nearly 20 percent from the previous year, the US-based Dui Hua Foundation said last month citing official figures. — AFP

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