Turkey says tests confirm leftist bombed U.S. embassy

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A member of a Turkish leftist group that accuses Washington of using Turkey as its "slave" carried out a suicide bomb attack on the U.S. embassy, the Ankara governor's office cited DNA tests as showing on Saturday.

Ecevit Sanli, a member of the leftist Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front (DHKP-C), blew himself up in a perimeter gatehouse on Friday as he tried to enter the embassy, also killing a Turkish security guard.

The DHKP-C, virulently anti-American and listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and Turkey, claimed responsibility in a statement on the internet in which it said Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was a U.S. "puppet".

"Murderer America! You will not run away from people's rage," the statement on "The People's Cry" website said, next to a picture of Sanli wearing a black beret and military-style clothes and with an explosives belt around his waist.

It warned Erdogan that he too was a target.

Turkey is an important U.S. ally in the Middle East with common interests ranging from energy security to counter-terrorism. Leftist groups including the DHKP-C strongly oppose what they see as imperialist U.S. influence over their nation.

DNA tests confirmed that Sanli was the bomber, the Ankara governor's office said. It said he had fled Turkey a decade ago and was wanted by the authorities.

Born in 1973 in the Black Sea port city of Ordu, Sanli was jailed in 1997 for attacks on a police station and a military staff college in Istanbul, but his sentence was deferred after he fell sick during a hunger strike. He was never re-jailed.

Condemned to life in prison in 2002, he fled the country a year later, officials said. Interior Minister Muammer Guler said he had re-entered Turkey using false documents.

Erdogan, who said hours after the attack that the DHKP-C were responsible, met his interior and foreign ministers as well as the head of the army and state security service in Istanbul on Saturday to discuss the bombing.

Three people were detained in Istanbul and Ankara in connection with the attack, state broadcaster TRT said.

The White House condemned the bombing as an "act of terror", while the U.N. Security Council described it as a heinous act. U.S. officials said on Friday the DHKP-C were the main suspects but did not exclude other possibilities.

Islamist radicals, extreme left-wing groups, ultra-nationalists and Kurdish militants have all carried out attacks in Turkey in the past.

SYRIA

The DHKP-C statement called on Washington to remove Patriot missiles, due to go operational on Monday as part of a NATO defense system, from Turkish soil.

The missiles are being deployed alongside systems from Germany and the Netherlands to guard Turkey, a NATO member, against a spillover of the war in neighboring Syria.

"Our action is for the independence of our country, which has become a new slave of America," the statement said.

Turkey has been one of the leading advocates of foreign intervention to end the civil war in Syria and has become one of President Bashar al-Assad's harshest critics, a stance groups such as the DHKP-C view as submission to an imperialist agenda.

"Organizations of the sectarian sort like the DHKP-C have been gaining ground as a result of circumstances surrounding the Syrian civil war," security analyst Nihat Ali Ozcan wrote in a column in Turkey's Daily News.

The Ankara attack was the second on a U.S. mission in four months. On September 11, 2012, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three American personnel were killed in an Islamist militant attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

The DHKP-C was responsible for the assassination of two U.S. military contractors in the early 1990s in protest against the first Gulf War, and it fired rockets at the U.S. consulate in Istanbul in 1992, according to the U.S. State Department.

It has been blamed for previous suicide attacks, including one in 2001 that killed two police officers and a tourist in Istanbul's central Taksim Square. It has carried out a series of deadly attacks on police stations in the last six months.

Friday's attack may have come in retaliation for an operation against the DHKP-C last month in which Turkish police detained 85 people. A court subsequently remanded 38 of them in custody over links to the group.

(Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Three injured as plane veers off Rome runway

ROME: A Romanian plane carrying 50 passengers veered off the runway while landing at Rome's Fiumicino airport on Saturday, injuring three people who were rushed to hospital, authorities said.

The ATR 72 turboprop plane of the Romanian airline Carpatair arriving from Pisa finished up at an angle on grass with its landing gear damaged, emergency services and airport officials said.

One of the three people hospitalised, a Romanian flight crew member, was said to have suffered spinal injuries but his condition was not life-threatening.

Another of those hurt had pelvic injuries.

Investigators were attempting to establish the cause of the accident, with bad weather -- winds and rain may have made the landing difficult -- or pilot error suspected.

A passenger on the plane told Ansa that the plane had touched down twice. "The second time the landing gear was bent out of shape and we ended up off the runway."

He described scenes of panic and screaming.

The Rome airport remained open though one of its runways was closed.

According to Italian media, several recent incidents have shed an unfavourable light on the partnership between Alitalia and Carpatair.

The Carpatair plane involved in Saturday's accident was carrying out an Alitalia flight.

In a statement Alitalia said that "strong winds" had forced the plane off the runway and announced the suspension of all its flights operated by Carpatair from Pisa and Bologna.

Last month, a Carpatair flight between Ancona and Rome made an emergency landing soon after take-off.

Earlier in January, another of the Romanian company's planes was forced to make a U-turn following cabin pressure problems which obliged passengers to use oxygen masks.

On January 10 the company issued a statement, denying any reliability problems and denouncing a "media campaign" against it fuelled by "Italian trade unions and pilots" unhappy with Carpatair's partnership with Alitalia.

Carpatair signed the flight-sharing deal with Alitalia last September.

-AFP/ac

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For Valentine's Day, Cupid ditches arrows, opts for e-cards

Admit it. You've always wanted to love like John Travolta.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

Romance isn't dead.

It's merely been reduced to the level of a friend request, a poke, and a privacy control.

Often in that order.

How else can one interpret the staggeringly predictable research -- performed on behalf of SOASTA, the oddly named company that performs cloud and mobile testing -- that suggests more than a third of American human beings will send an e-card for Valentine's Day?

It's true that some e-cards can be amusing, uplifting, even offering an instant surprise on an otherwise moribund day. But can they truly incite a loving feeling on America's most commercially amorous day of the year?

You will be stunned into loving only yourself for the rest of your days when I tell you that -- of the 2,474 American adults surveyed -- men seem a little keener on Valentine e-cards than women.

Indeed, this research offered that 47 percent of men between the ages of 35 and 44 indicated that the love of their life deserved merely a few clicks and a canned expression of love.

Next in enthusiasm were men aged 18-34, 41 percent of whom will let their fingers do the loving.

But let's not besmirch these men any more than they deserve. 41 percent of women aged 18-34 also claimed that e-cards were their chosen method to stroke their chosen one.

Clearly, convenience is at the heart of this e-card enthusiasm, just as it is at the heart of modern romance.

Respondents were radiant at the idea that e-cards are free. 35 percent beamed at the fact that they offer the possibility of animation. And a deeply serious 34 percent felt the need to point out they were environmentally friendly.

A surprisingly paltry 6 percent admitted that they loved e-cards because you could happily include NSFW content.

More Technically Incorrect

Because ours is an acquisitive society, those who send these free, convenient things to express their temporarily undying love actually expect something in return.

A kiss is expected by 8 percent. A fulsome 10 percent expect sex. They must be among those who believe you can get something for nothing.

There will be those who reach for their Latin and mutter: "Sic transit tragoedia mundi." (Oh, look it up, e-carders.)

But when a whole new personal version of oneself is being created and spun online, who can be surprised that other expressions of love might seem not merely passe but also downright unexpressive?

E-cards surely allow you a far greater breadth than paper cards or balloons to display precisely what you really feel about the most important person in your life.

Which, in the case of 3 percent of the respondents in this moving survey, is "the hot receptionist at work."

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Timbuktu celebrates defeat of Islamist extremists

(CBS News) BAMAKO, Mali - The French president capped the triumph of his nation's forces -- with American help -- of retaking the center of culture in this African nation with a quick visit Saturday to the city whose people suffered under the severe Islamic code known as shariah law.

It was a victory lap for French President Francois Hollande. The troops he sent in to Mali three weeks ago chased Islamic extremists out of the town of Timbuktu to the relief and joy of the residents.

The extremists not only tyrannized people with public lashings and amputations, they also desecrated the heritage of this ancient desert trading post.

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Its elaborate mud brick mosques are protected by the United Nations and so were its tombs, built for Islamic saints nearly 700 years ago. A local resident, Sidi Babbi, showed CBS News two of them, now in ruins.

Last spring, the extremists decided they weren't Islamic enough and sent in a wrecking crew.

"We were heartbroken," Babbi said through a translator, "but when we protested they fired their guns in the air to drive us away."

At Timbuktu's library, the extremists turned to arson just before they fled in January, torching some of the 300,000 ancient Arabic documents.

But on Saturday the librarians had good news for France's president: The timely arrival of his army meant that less than one percent of the collection has been destroyed.

Now, feeling safe again, the people of Timbuktu want the French army to stay. Malian troops alone, they say, can't keep the extremists at bay.

But for the French government, mindful of America's recent losses in Afghanistan and Iraq, leaving these soldiers here for much longer is simply not an option.

The United States was instrumental in the French victory, offering big military transport aircraft to bring French trucks and soldiers to Mali. Midair fueling for French planes, including fighter planes, was also offered by the U.S. and going forward the nation is going to pledge more than $10 million for training Mali's troops so they can secure their own country in the months ahead.

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Body of Missing Mom Reportedly Found in Turkey

The body of an American woman who went missing while on a solo trip to Turkey has been pulled from a bay in Istanbul, and nine people have been held for questioning, according to local media.

Sarai Sierra, 33, was last heard from on Jan. 21, the day she was due to board a flight home to New York City.

The state-run Andolu Agency reported that residents found a woman's body today near the ruins of some ancient city walls in a low-income district, and police identified the body as Sierra.

Rep. Michael Grimm, R-NY, who with his staff had been assisting the Sierra family in the search, said he was "deeply saddened" to hear the news of her death.

"I urge Turkish officials to move quickly to identify whomever is responsible for her tragic death and ensure that any guilty parties are punished to the fullest extent of the law," he said in a statement.

Courtesy Sarai Sierra's family

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The New York City mother, who has two young boys, traveled to Turkey alone on Jan. 7 after a friend had to cancel. Sierra, who is an avid photographer with a popular Instagram stream, planned to document her dream vacation with her camera.

"It was her first time outside of the United States, and every day while she was there she pretty much kept in contact with us, letting us know what she was up to, where she was going, whether it be through texting or whether it be through video chat, she was touching base with us," Steven Sierra told ABC News before he departed for Istanbul last Sunday to aid in the search.

Steven Sierra has been in the country, meeting with U.S. officials and local authorities, as they searched for his wife.

On Friday, Turkish authorities detained a man who had spoken with Sierra online before her disappearance. The identity of the man and the details of his arrest were not disclosed, The Associated Press reported.

The family said it is completely out of character for the happily married mother, who met her husband in church youth group, to disappear.

She took two side trips, to Amsterdam and Munich, before returning to Turkey, but kept in contact with her family the entire time, a family friend told ABC News.

Further investigation revealed she had left her passport, clothes, phone chargers and medical cards in her room at a hostel in Beyoglu, Turkey.

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Suicide bomber kills guard at U.S. embassy in Turkey

ANKARA (Reuters) - A far-leftist suicide bomber killed a Turkish security guard at the U.S. embassy in Ankara on Friday, officials said, blowing open an entrance and sending debris flying through the air.

The attacker detonated explosives strapped to his body after entering an embassy gatehouse. The blast could be heard a mile away. A lower leg and other human remains lay on the street.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said the bomber was a member of the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), a far-left group which is virulently anti-U.S. and anti-NATO and is listed as a terrorist organisation by Washington.

The White House said the suicide attack was an "act of terror" but that the motivation was unclear. U.S. officials said the DHKP-C were the main suspects but did not exclude other possibilities.

Islamist radicals, extreme left-wing groups, ultra-nationalists and Kurdish militants have all carried out attacks in Turkey in the past. There was no claim of responsibility.

"The suicide bomber was ripped apart and one or two citizens from the special security team passed away," said Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.

"This event shows that we need to fight together everywhere in the world against these terrorist elements," he said.

In New York, the U.N. Security Council strongly condemned the attack as a heinous act.

Turkish media reports identified the bomber as DHKP-C member Ecevit Sanli, who was involved in attacks on a police station and a military staff college in Istanbul in 1997.

KEY ALLY

Turkey is a key U.S. ally in the Middle East with common interests ranging from energy security to counter-terrorism and has been one of the leading advocates of foreign intervention to end the conflict in neighboring Syria.

Around 400 U.S. soldiers have arrived in Turkey over the past few weeks to operate Patriot anti-missile batteries meant to defend against any spillover of Syria's civil war, part of a NATO deployment due to be fully operational in the coming days.

The DHKP-C was responsible for the assassination of two U.S. military contractors in the early 1990s in protest against the first Gulf War and launched rockets at the U.S. consulate in Istanbul in 1992, according to the U.S. State Department.

Deemed a terrorist organisation by both the United States and Turkey, the DHKP-C has been blamed for suicide attacks in the past, including one in 2001 that killed two police officers and a tourist in Istanbul's central Taksim Square.

The group, formed in 1978, has carried out a series of deadly attacks on police stations in the last six months.

The attack may have come in retaliation for an operation against the DHKP-C last month in which Turkish police detained 85 people. A court subsequently remanded 38 of them in custody over links to the group.

"HUGE EXPLOSION"

U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone emerged through the main gate of the embassy shortly after the explosion to address reporters, flanked by a security detail as a Turkish police helicopter hovered overhead.

"We're very sad of course that we lost one of our Turkish guards at the gate," Ricciardone said, describing the victim as a "hero" and thanking Turkish authorities for a prompt response.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland condemned the attack on the checkpoint on the perimeter of the embassy and said several U.S. and Turkish staff were injured by debris.

"The level of security protection at our facility in Ankara ensured that there were not significantly more deaths and injuries than there could have been," she told reporters.

It was the second attack on a U.S. mission in four months. On September 11, 2012, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three American personnel were killed in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

The attack in Benghazi, blamed on al Qaeda-affiliated militants, sparked a political furore in Washington over accusations that U.S. missions were not adequately safeguarded.

A well-known Turkish journalist, Didem Tuncay, who was on her way in to the embassy to meet Ricciardone when the attack took place, was in a critical condition in hospital.

"It was a huge explosion. I was sitting in my shop when it happened. I saw what looked like a body part on the ground," said travel agent Kamiyar Barnos, whose shop window was shattered around 100 meters away from the blast.

CALL FOR VIGILANCE

The U.S. consulate in Istanbul warned its citizens to be vigilant and to avoid large gatherings, while the British mission in Istanbul called on British businesses to tighten security after what it called a "suspected terrorist attack".

In 2008, Turkish gunmen with suspected links to al Qaeda, opened fire on the U.S. consulate in Istanbul, killing three Turkish policemen. The gunmen died in the subsequent firefight.

The most serious bombings in Turkey occurred in November 2003, when car bombs shattered two synagogues, killing 30 people and wounding 146. Part of the HSBC Bank headquarters was destroyed and the British consulate was damaged in two more explosions that killed 32 people less than a week later. Authorities said those attacks bore the hallmarks of al Qaeda.

(Additional reporting by Daren Butler and Ayla Jean Yackley in Istanbul, Mohammed Arshad and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Stephen Powell and Sandra Maler)

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Australian PM Gillard reshuffles cabinet ahead of poll

SYDNEY: Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard Saturday denied that her government was in chaos, after the resignation of two of her most senior ministers prompted a cabinet reshuffle ahead of a national election.

Saturday's announcement that the two ministers had quit came only three days after the Labor leader said elections would be held in September, an unusual step in Australia where polls are usually only called a few weeks in advance.

Gillard said Attorney General Nicola Roxon, the first woman in the job and a staunch supporter of the prime minister, and Senate leader Chris Evans, who has at times been acting prime minister, were leaving the cabinet immediately.

But she denied that the move had thrown her coalition government into chaos.

"Why on earth would anybody say that?" Gillard said.

"Number one, I've named the election date, giving people more stability and certainty than they've ever had before," she told reporters in Canberra.

"Number two, I'm here today making what is a very long-planned announcement, having had the opportunity to discuss with both Chris and Nicola their views about their futures during the course of last year."

Gillard said she had known for a year that Evans, who is Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research, and Roxon did not want to stand for re-election and she had waited for the best time to announce this.

"This is the right time to announce this change moving as we are into the parliamentary week," Gillard said.

The reshuffle means former senior barrister Mark Dreyfus will become the next attorney general and current Immigration Minister Chris Bowen will take on Evans' portfolio.

Gillard said Bowen had wanted a new challenge from the demanding immigration role, set to be a key election issue as Australia struggles to stem a record influx of boat people seeking asylum, which will now fall to Brendan O'Connor.

Mike Kelly, a former Australian Defence Force member, will become minister for defence materiel.

Gillard, whom opinion polls suggest will lose the upcoming election to conservative opposition leader Tony Abbott, said her new team was the one she intended to take to the election.

-AFP/ac

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Powertrekk fuel cell charger to be released in Spring

Along with a fuel cell puck, the PowerTrekk gives your iPhone a bit of juice. Just add water.

(Credit:
Lynn La/CNET)

While it's been circulating around at trade shows for a while, including Mobile World Congress 2011 and CES 2012, the PowerTrekk phone charger is slated to finally come to the U.S. at the end of this quarter.

Although the $229 device is peddled as a charger that can simply juice up your phone on water alone, it's not quite that simple.

To use the PowerTrekk, you also have to purchase a $4 PowerTrekk Pukk. Once you add a small amount of water (about half a shot), and add a one-time-use Pukk, the latter will immediately begin separating the hydrogen from the water, using it as fuel to charge your handset.

Each Pukk will produces 2.5 watts at 5 volts, which is good for about one full iPhone charge. If there is electricity available, however, you can also charge the separate internal battery in the PowerTrekk so it can power your phone later on.

Power your phone in an emergency

When I handled the unit at iWorld in San Francisco, it was indeed very lightweight despite its industrial look, and in a situation where there is no sun, I can see it coming in handy.

However, there is much debate about how useful a product like this can be. Not only is it rather cumbersome in shape, but you'll need to continually buy more Pukks in order to use the device multiple times. Compared to solar chargers and chargers that run on kinetic energy, this can become wasteful and pricey.

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Twitter: 250,000 users' data compromised in hacking attacks

#1157946: Twitter bird logo, social networking and microblogging service, graphic element on white / AP Graphics

Twitter said today that it recently detected a series of attempts to hack into user data, and that the attackers may have successfully absconded with some users' information.

In a blog post Friday afternoon, Twitter explained the situation, and the steps it has taken to fight off the hackers.

This week, we detected unusual access patterns that led to us identifying unauthorized access attempts to Twitter user data. We discovered one live attack and were able to shut it down in process moments later. However, our investigation has thus far indicated that the attackers may have had access to limited user information - usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords - for approximately 250,000 users. As a precautionary security measure, we have reset passwords and revoked session tokens for these accounts. If your account was one of them, you will have recently received (or will shortly) an email from us at the address associated with your Twitter account notifying you that you will need to create a new password. Your old password will not work when you try to log in to Twitter.

Twitter said in the post that a very small number of users were affected by the hacking, but it encouraged everyone who uses the service to ensure that they are practicing "good password hygiene, on Twitter and elsewhere on the Internet." Among its suggestions: using unique passwords of at least ten characters, including a mix of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols. Based on attacks on other high-profile tech and media companies, Twitter also said it is recommending the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's recent advisory on disabling Java, among other precautions.

This attack was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident. The attackers were extremely sophisticated, and we believe other companies and organizations have also been recently similarly attacked. For that reason we felt that it was important to publicize this attack while we still gather information, and we are helping government and federal law enforcement in their effort to find and prosecute these attackers to make the Internet safer for all users.

This article originally appeared on CNET under the headline "Twitter says 250,000 users' data compromised in hacking attacks"

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Gov's Handling of Sandusky Case Under Investigation

The newly-elected attorney general of Pennsylvania is going after the state's governor, Tom Corbett, who was attorney general when child sex allegations against Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky were first brought forward.

Kathleen Kane, a Democrat who was sworn in as attorney general on Jan. 15, said that she will name a special prosecutor in the coming days to investigate Corbett's handling of the Sandusky case. Corbett is a Republican.

The investigation will look specifically at why it took the attorney general's office three years to bring criminal charges against Sandusky while he continued to have access to children.

"Attorney General Kane will appoint a special prosecutor to lead the office's internal investigation into how the Sandusky child abuse investigation was handled by the Office of the Attorney General," Kane's office said in a statement released today.

Corbett's attorney general's office was first notified of the allegations against Sandusky in 2008 when a high school student told his mother and school that Sandusky had molested him. The local district attorney passed the allegation on to the attorney general, then Corbett. Corbett convened a grand jury.

Mario Tama; Patrick Smith/Getty Images

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It wasn't until 2011 that sex abuse charges were filed against Sandusky while Corbett had since become governor. Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of sex abuse in June 2012.

The charges sent shockwaves throughout Pennsylvania, as Penn State's president, two top officials, and legendary coach Joe Paterno all lost their jobs over the scandal.

"Why did it take 33 months to get Sandusky off the streets? Was the use of a grand jury the right decision? Why were there so few resources dedicated to the investigation? Were the best practices implemented?" the statement from Kane's office read.

"At the end of this investigation, we will know the answers to these questions and be able to tell the people of Pennsylvania the facts and give them answers that they deserve," the statement said.

Describing an interview Kane gave the New York Times, the Times said Kane suggested that Corbett did not want to upset voters or donors in the Penn State community before his gubernatorial run in 2009.

Corbett has denied those suggestions. His office did not immediately return calls for comment.

Kane's office preemptively fought back against the idea that the investigation is politically motivated. Kane, a Democrat, defeated the incumbent attorney general, Linda Kelly, a Republican in November 2011. Corbett is a Republican.

"The speculation that this is about politics is insane," a staff member in Kane's office told ABC News today. "You go anywhere in Pennsylvania and anywhere across the country and you'll find individuals asking, 'why did it take three years? Why was there a grand jury? Why make these kids talk to 30 different people about what happened?"

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