Football: Troubled Indonesia dodges FIFA sanctions

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JAKARTA: Indonesia evaded sanctions from world football regulator FIFA Friday, the nation's federation said, and was given an extension to resolve a row that has thrown Indonesian football into crisis.

FIFA had given the Indonesian Football Association (PSSI) a December 10 deadline to reconcile its differences with rival Indonesian Soccer Rescue Committee (KPSI) that runs a rebel league splitting the nation's top teams.

"FIFA did not sanction Indonesia and we were asked to solve our problem as soon as possible," PSSI head Djohar Arifin told AFP by telephone from Tokyo, after FIFA discussed the issue in a meeting.

The rival administrations failed to show unity despite signing a memorandum of understanding in June vowing to bring Indonesian football under one umbrella.

The nation's top sports authorities were forced to establish a taskforce after the deadline passed ahead of the Tokyo meeting to begin mediation in the long-standing feud.

In a statement emailed to media later, FIFA said: "The PSSI has submitted a three-month roadmap.

"Therefore, the situation of the PSSI will be examined again by the Associations Committee and the Executive Committee at their next meetings.

"This is the very final deadline that will be given to the PSSI to normalise its situation."

Arifin said he was informed of FIFA's decision via email and was told the task to oversee Indonesia's progress was handed to the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).

He said FIFA had not told him how long the extension would be, but that FIFA would evaluate Indonesia's progress in an association committee meeting on February 14, adding that he hoped to resolve the crisis by FIFA's executive committee meeting on March 20.

The decision has been met with mixed reactions in the 240-million-strong nation, where despite a poor performing national team, football attracts millions of fanatics.

"It's very kind of FIFA to not give sanctions. Now let's solve Indonesia's football problem," Ali Abu Negara tweeted in Indonesian.

Another Indonesian Twitter user Bheny Hermawan disagreed: "It's better for Indonesia to get sanctions so we can start from zero, for a better football in the future."

The PSSI has been in hot water with FIFA and the AFC in recent years over poor management, corruption allegations, leadership tussles and poor security at major matches.

The dual-league rivalry has also hit the national team after the KPSI told players from its unofficial top-tier Liga Super not to make themselves available.

At Southeast Asia's ongoing Suzuki Cup, four-time finalists Indonesia bowed out in the group stages.

-AFP/ac



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CES 2013 preview: The love and the hate of the greatest (tech) show on earth

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This will be my 13th
CES. Fewer than many, more than some. It's a grueling marathon of press conferences, swarming crowds, and endless lines.


When it comes to TV tech, David's take on what we'll see in Vegas is spot-on. I'm going to go one better, though. I'm going predict with stunning, remarkable, mind-blowing accuracy, exactly what we'll see at the show of shows.


1. 4K, 8K, 12K, ?K
I've gotten a lot of flak for my position on 4K, and 99 percent of it is from people not reading what I wrote, yet assuming they know what I said. Let me be very clear: 4K the resolution is awesome... for large screens. I have a 102-inch screen, and I'd love 4K and 4K content. But 4K TVs are stupid. And when I say "TV" I'm talking about the TVs most people buy, like 50 inches and smaller. At that size, 4K is pointless because your eye can't resolve it. Annnnnd I know what the first 20 comments to this post are going to be about.


But we're going to see more 4K Ultra HD. We're going to see 8K and probably more. If you read or hear from anyone that saw these ultra-ultra resolution displays, ask them how close they were standing.


2. OLED, FFS OLED
For frak's sake (yes, that's a PG-rated "FFS"), OLED was promised to us this year. I don't care what the problems are, I want my OLED and I want it now <stamps feet and pouts>. We better hear more about OLED, with pricing and a date. My guess? We'll be hearing from at least one new player -- perhaps the unholy alliance of Panasonic and Sony? OLED is way more interesting than 4K, as it represents better picture quality overall, not just higher resolution. Ultra HD is like putting better tires on a
car. Sure it's an improvement, but the rest of the car is the same. OLED is an entirely new and better car

Now before I continue, I feel I should explain something. When I and anyone else from CNET goes to CES, we're there to work. We're not "going to Vegas," we're going to CES, which just happens to be in Las Vegas. Our lives, for the most part, consist of hotel-transportation-convention center-transportation-hotel. I'm sure some gamble or see shows, but honestly, there's very little time. This isn't a vacation; we're there to work, we have to be there, and we have a lot to see. So, with that in mind...


3. Crappy press conferences
Press conferences are an awful, life-crushing experience. Imagine the most crowded room you've ever been in, crammed full of often smelly humanity of all shapes and sizes, filling every available space. Now, sit through a PowerPoint presentation detailing the sales figures of washers and dryers over the third quarter in Belize, Guatemala, and Qatar. Then, after your brain has seized up in some kind of Darwinian protection response, there's 32 seconds at the end covering all 1,700 new TV models. What? You feel asleep? You missed a model number? Too bad, because now you have to make a mad dash down the hall so you can squeeze into another hot and humid room with 3,000 of your closest frenemies and do it all over again.


The terribleness is not one person's fault. These are big companies, and I'm sure those tasked with creating these monstrosities work hard to make them as painless as possible. Then, after they've spent weeks crafting the perfect message and an entertaining experience, their boss informs them that her boss wants to speak at CES for 15 of the 45 allotted minutes on the company's "direction."


I can sit through about two press conferences per year; after that it devolves into an MST3K-style tweetfest mocking life, the universe, and everything. It's miraculous that I've never been fired (sort of).


4. No Wi-Fi
We landed a nuclear-powered SUV with frickin' laser beams on Mars, and we still can't get enough Wi-Fi bandwidth for the world's most obvious problem? After all the press conference nonsense, good luck trying to tell the world. Wi-Fi at 100 baud -- rockin'! I'm not asking to stream HD videos of kittens snoring, but being able to post text to a Web site would be nice. You know -- my job?


5. Lines
Lines for cabs. Lines for the monorail. Lines for food. Lines for elevators. Lines for cars (also called "traffic"). Lines for lines. You've walked 12 miles covering the show. All you want to do is go back to your overpriced, ugly hotel room and take your shoes off. It's two miles away. It takes you a hour to get there.


6. Questionable hygiene
Look, I know we Americans are typically "overshowered" compared to inhabitants of most countries, but dammit, put on some deodorant. You're getting shoved in beside other people for hours on end; have some human decency.


7. No one washes their hands!!!
More than half the men leaving the bathroom don't wash their hands. Not an exaggeration. Not a joke. I've seen it with my own eyes at every CES I've been to so far.


8. OMG #7
Seriously. Gross.


9. Rollybags
Look, I understand some people, for myriad reasons, don't have the ability to carry a heavy backpack or satchel around all day. But if you're toting around a rollybag, I hate you. So does everyone else. The normal human takes up about four square feet of floor space. Carting around a rollybag, that area triples. Not only are you wasting precious space on an already crowded floor, you're doing it down out of normal sightlines. At every show, I trip over someone's rollybag and nearly take a header. I've seen countless people fall over them and land hard. These abominations should be banned completely.


And wait a second: what are you toting around that's so heavy and important anyway? Iron Man's suit? Thor's hammer? What? I have a $275 laptop that weighs less than three pounds, plus I carry a real camera and two big lenses, and all of that fits in a bag a kid could carry. (Hmmm, now there's an idea....) This rolling episode of "Hoarders" has to stop. It's dangerous.


10. Meanderers
As I said earlier, most of us at the show are here to work. Some of us cover so many different product categories, that we're literally running from place to place to place to attempt to see everything we need to -- and we won't, it's futile. There's a percentage of people who, apparently, have absolutely nothing to do while they're there. They meander, shuffling slowly around the show with no direction, no straight line. They're speedbumps for those of us who move with a purpose. Hey, whatever you want to do at CES is none of my business, but at least don't walk four abreast with your buddies, blocking aisles. And please, please, please -- move to the side.


Which brings me to my last point. If this is your first CES, I wrote Ten Tips for the CES Noob for S+V last year, and it's still current (not to mention one of my more favorite articles).


Bottom Line
OK, now that all of that is out of my system, I have to say this: The drive to Vegas for CES is one of my favorite days of year. Just a flat-out high-speed burn through Berdoo, Barstow, and Baker. Up the hill, cresting to reveal that unmistakable, incongruous valley, ever growing, ever changing.


The truth is, despite the toll on mind and body, I love CES. It's exciting. We see cool stuff. I get to spend time with friends and co-workers I only see a few times a year. The food is excellent -- seriously.


It occurs to me that every annoyance I've complained about stems from the fact that I have to actually work at the show. A Catch-22 if I've ever seen one. I'd love to go to CES if I didn't have to work, but if I wasn't working, I couldn't go to CES.


Maybe I'll figure it out next year.



Got a question for Geoff? Send him an e-mail! If it's witty, amusing, and/or a good question, you may just see it in a post just like this one. No, he won't tell you which TV to buy. Yes, he'll probably truncate and/or clean up your e-mail. You can also send him a message on Twitter: @TechWriterGeoff.


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Pictures: Surveying Rain Forest Arthropods

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State Police: Two Gunmen at Conn. Grade School

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A shooting involving two gunmen erupted at a Connecticut elementary school this morning, prompting the town of Newtown to lock down all of its schools and draw SWAT teams to the school, authorities said today.


State Police confirm that one shooter is dead. A second gunman is apparently at large, sources told ABC News.


The shooting occurred at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, about 12 miles east of Danbury.


State Police received the first 911 call at 9:41a.m. and immediately began sending emergency units from the western part of the state. Initial 911 calls stated that multiple students were trapped in a classroom, possibly with a gunman, according to a Connecticut State Police source.






Shannon Hicks/The Newtown Bee







A photo from the scene shows a line of distressed children being led out of the school.


CLICK HERE for more photos from the scene.


While some students have been reunited with their parents on the school's perimeter, one group of students remains unaccounted for, according to a source with a child in the school.


Newton Public School District secretary of superintendent Kathy June said in a statement that the district's school were locked down because of the report of a shooting. "The district is taking preventive measures by putting all schools in lockdown until we ensure the safety of all students and staff."


State police sent SWAT team units to Newtown.


All public and private schools in the town are on lockdown.


State emergency management officials said ambulances and other units were also en route and staging near the school.


A message on the school district website says that all afternoon kindergarten is cancelled today and there will be no mid-day bus runs.



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Higgs boson having an identity crisis

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The Higgs boson is sending mixed signals: its mass seems to vary depending on how it is measured. What's more, oddities in the way it decays into other particles, first noticed when the team at the Large Hadron Collider announced the discovery of a new boson in July, do not seem to be going away.













Experiments at the LHC, part of the CERN particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, do not detect the Higgs directly. Instead, they collect and analyse the slew of particles it is predicted to decay into. The latest results from the ATLAS detector at the LHC suggest that when we look at its decay into two photons, we find that the new boson's mass is about 3 greater than when calculated from its decay into particles called Z bosons.












Albert De Roeck, one of the key Higgs hunters at ATLAS's sibling detector, CMS, finds this puzzling. "The results are barely consistent," he says.











But he says the inconsistency almost certainly reflects a problem with the measurements rather than strange physics.













"There's probably a large statistical fluctuation pulling the data around," says Matt Strassler of Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey. He says the problem may have implications for other results.











No fluke












The ATLAS team also announced new results from analysing the Higgs boson's rate of decay into pairs of photons. The standard model of particle physics predicts exactly how often this should happen. Intriguingly, when early hints of a new particle were upgraded to a "discovery" in July, it was doing that more often than the standard model says it should. But there was not enough data to say whether this was a fluke.













If the Higgs really decays into photons at too fast a rate, it would offer some clues as to where to look for new physics that might explain mysteries like dark matter, gravity and the dearth of antimatter in the universe.












Today, physicists announced that the excess has not gone away – and it does not look any less likely to be a fluke either, because they have now seen twice the number of decays.












"It keeps us titillated," says Raymond Volkas from the University of Melbourne in Australia. Strassler calls the new results "very interesting and tantalising", but adds that they are still not quite enough to tell us anything.












"I guess the CMS results are now very highly anticipated," says De Roeck. The CMS team has not released their data on the Higgs decay to photons yet, saying they need more time to do their analysis.












According to Strassler, the Higgs mass problem could be a sign that we should not trust the unusually high rate of photon decays measured. "This unfortunately tends to make me less confident that the excess seen in the photon signal will survive with more data."











Next week, the LHC will move into a different phase before shutting down in early 2013 while the machine is upgraded. You'd think that might let physicists' blood pressure recover, but there is no rest for the wicked. Marumi Kado, presenting the ATLAS results today, said they have only analysed a fraction of the data collected so far. "Surprises might be waiting for us in the present data," he said.



















































If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.




































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Ukrainian MPs brawl in parliament as PM re-appointed

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KIEV: The Ukrainian parliament Thursday voted to reinstate its prime minister after dozens of opposition and pro-government lawmakers brawled for a second day in the chamber notorious for its fisticuffs.

Newly-elected world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko sought to stand above the fray by staying well out of the fighting that came just before parliament voted to re-appoint Prime Minister Mykola Azarov.

Deputies in suits and shirtsleeves climbed on tables, shouted and grappled with opponents in an angry protest against lawmakers pressing electronic buttons to vote for absentee colleagues.

While lawmakers are legally obliged to vote in person, many of them run around pressing buttons for absent colleagues.

Opposition politicians rose to their feet and rushed to blockade the speaker's tribune, while being pushed back by pro-government lawmakers.

Amid angry shouts and calls for calm, some clambered on desks from where they dealt blows and jumped down on opponents.

At least one opposition lawmaker had a bruised face after being thrown to the floor and receiving punches and kicks from ruling party lawmakers, the Interfax news agency reported.

The towering boxing champion Klitschko, whose opposition party UDAR, or punch, has won 42 seats in the parliament, refrained from joining the skirmishes and could be seen seated, watching the fight calmly.

"You could call the fists of a world champion a nuclear weapon. I don't think we will use this weapon yet," Klitschko said, quoted by his party press service.

But he added: "We do support the blockading of the tribune."

After a break, the parliament managed to restore calm and hold a vote to reappoint prime minister Azarov that had been postponed from Wednesday.

A total of 252 deputies out of 450 in the single-chamber parliament supported Azarov's return to office, including President Viktor Yanukovych's ruling Regions Party, the Communists and several independents.

Three opposition factions - Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party close to jailed ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, the UDAR party of Klitschko and the Svoboda nationalist movement - did not back Azarov.

"The politics of the Regions Party of which Azarov is a representative is anti-Ukrainian, anti-social and anti-democratic," said comments from Svoboda.

It remained unclear why Azarov, 64, took the dramatic step of resigning earlier this month, with the presidency saying at the time that Yanukovych had accepted his request to give up his post and become an MP.

Azarov called on the parliament to leave behind the "confrontation" to "face together outside challenges" including the global economic crisis that is already hurting Ukraine.

The parliament's opening session on Wednesday had earlier seen fighting erupt between opposition lawmakers and deputies whom they accused of defecting to the pro-government camp.

In a typically raucous session, feminist group Femen also staged a topless anti-corruption protest outside the entrance to the parliament wearing only black pants.

The brawls were an ugly start to a new parliament apparently still controlled by Yanukovych's Regions Party, which claims to have won a majority in legislative elections on October 28.

The October polls were widely criticised by the international community, coming as Tymoshenko continues to serve a seven-year prison term for abuse of power that she argues is politically motivated.

The Ukrainian parliament is often the scene of scuffles with lawmakers throwing eggs and letting off smokebombs.

Two years ago several opposition deputies were badly injured in a bloody brawl prompted by the opening of a criminal probe into Tymoshenko that saw punches thrown and chairs hurled.

- AFP/de



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iPhone infringes on patents from MobileMedia, rules jury

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Apple has lost a courtroom case pitting it against patent holder MobileMedia.


A U.S. court ruled today that the iPhone infringes on three patents held by MobileMedia, according to a tweet from Bloomberg. CNET has contacted MobileMedia for comment. A person at the company had no details to share but said that the PR representative was in the process of preparing a statement on the matter.


The jury trial kicked off just last month in a case in which Apple was accused of violating patents held by MobileMedia, a company jointly owned by Sony, Nokia, and a Denver-based outfit called MPEG LA, which licenses patents for the MPEG standards.


It's unknown at this time which three patents were included in the ruling. CNET will update the story as we receive more information.


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Hubble Discovers Oldest Known Galaxy

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The Hubble space telescope has discovered seven primitive galaxies formed in the earliest days of the cosmos, including one believed to be the oldest ever detected.

The discovery, announced Wednesday, is part of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field campaign to determine how and when galaxies first assembled following the Big Bang.

"This 'cosmic dawn' was not a single, dramatic event," said astrophysicist Richard Ellis with the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Rather, galaxies appear to have been formed over hundreds of millions of years.

Ellis led a team that used Hubble to look at one small section of the sky for a hundred hours. The grainy images of faint galaxies include one researchers determined to be from a period 380 million years after the onset of the universe—the closest in time to the Big Bang ever observed.

The cosmos is about 13.7 billion years old, so the newly discovered galaxy was present when the universe was 4 percent of its current age. The other six galaxies were sending out light from between 380 million and 600 million years after the Big Bang. (See pictures of "Hubble's Top Ten Discoveries.")

Baby Pictures

The images are "like the first ultrasounds of [an] infant," said Abraham Loeb, a specialist in the early cosmos at Harvard University. "These are the building blocks of the galaxies we now have."

These early galaxies were a thousand times denser than galaxies are now and were much closer together as well, Ellis said. But they were also less luminous than later galaxies.

The team used a set of four filters to analyze the near infrared wavelengths captured by Hubble Wide Field Camera 3, and estimated the galaxies' distances from Earth by studying their colors. At a NASA teleconference, team members said they had pushed Hubble's detection capabilities about as far as they could go and would most likely not be able to identify galaxies from further back in time until the James Webb Space Telescope launches toward the end of the decade. (Learn about the Hubble telescope.)

"Although we may have reached back as far as Hubble will see, Hubble has set the stage for Webb," said team member Anton Koekemoer of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. "Our work indicates there is a rich field of even earlier galaxies that Webb will be able to study."


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Royal Hoax Nurse Hanged Herself, Left 3 Notes

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Jacintha Saldanha, the London nurse who killed herself after she answered a radio-station prank call about Kate Middleton, was found hanging from the neck, and left three notes, according to the coroner's officer.


The 46-year-old nurse who worked at London's King Edward VII Hospital was discovered Dec. 7 hanging by a scarf from a wardrobe in her bedroom, Coroner's Officer Lynda Martindill told a British inquest.


The wife and mother of two also had injuries to her wrists, according to police detective chief inspector James Harman.


Harman told the coroner's inquest that two notes were found at the scene and a third was discovered among Saldanha's belongings.


He did not release the contents of the notes.








Royal Hospital Hoax: Fallout Continues for DJs Watch Video









Royal Hospital Hoax: End to Shock-Jock Pranks? Watch Video









Australian DJs Apologize in Wake of Nurse's Suicide Watch Video





There is no suspicion of foul play in Saldanha's death, Harman said. Investigators are still trying to piece together exactly what led to her suicide, and are now interviewing her friends, family and co-workers to find more information, Harman said.


Saldanha was found dead Friday morning after police were called to an address near the hospital to "reports of a woman found unconscious," according to a statement from Scotland Yard.


Saldanha had worked at the hospital for more than four years.


DJs Mel Greig and Michael Christian of 2Day FM in Sydney called the hospital Dec. 5 pretending to be Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles, looking to speak to Middleton, who was being treated at the hospital for acute nausea related to her pregnancy. The duo were able to obtain information about the duchess' condition.


When the royal impersonators called the hospital, Saldanha put them through to a second nurse who told the royal impersonators that Kate was "quite stable" and hadn't "had any retching."


The radio station, along with Greig and Christian, has apologized for the prank call, and the Australian Communications and Media Authority has now launched an investigation into the incident.


Coroner Fiona Wilcox has adjourned the inquest into Saldanha's death until March 26.



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OPEC sits tight before oil output meeting

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VIENNA: OPEC maintained Tuesday its oil demand growth forecasts ahead of a meeting to discuss output levels and pick a new secretary-general for the cartel that pumps out more than a third of the world's crude.

While the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was expected to hold its oil production ceiling at 30 million barrels per day (mbpd) in Vienna on Wednesday, there was uncertainty over who would become the group's new administrative head.

The world's biggest oil exporter Saudi Arabia was battling against Iraq and political foe Iran to succeed Libya's Abdullah El-Badri, who as OPEC secretary-general for the past six years has steered the cartel through the financial crisis.

A vote to pick his successor was postponed in June after OPEC failed to reach the required unanimous decision. Another delay could see El-Badri stay on beyond the maximum of two, three-year terms, analysts said.

The oil ministers of Kuwait and Venezuela were not attending Wednesday's meeting because of political events in their countries, while it was not known if the absences would affect the outcome of the secretary-general vote.

Asked if OPEC would decide on a new secretary-general at the ministerial meeting in Vienna, home to the cartel's headquarters, Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi simply told reporters: "Maybe."

UAE Energy Minister Mohammad bin Dhaen al-Hamli added: "I hope we will solve this issue tomorrow."

Hamli meanwhile insisted that there was "no need to do anything" over OPEC's current oil production levels. Iran's Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi added to the expectation of there being no change, stating that crude supply and demand was "relatively balanced" and that "prices are okay."

OPEC is said by analysts to be producing about one million oil barrels above its official daily ceiling, as Saudi Arabia compensates for lost Iranian output caused by a Western embargo on the Islamic Republic, and as other nations look to maximise profits while oil prices remain high.

World oil prices rose Tuesday on expectations of fresh stimulus measures from the Federal Reserve to perk up the struggling US economy, traders said, with benchmark Brent North Sea crude adding 70 cents to $108.07 a barrel.

An expected drop in oil demand next year risks dampening crude prices despite a background of Middle Eastern unrest, notably over Iran's disputed nuclear programme.

OPEC on Tuesday kept its forecast for growth in world oil demand unchanged for this year and next. World oil demand was expected to reach 88.80 mbpd in 2012, up from 88.04 mbpd in 2011, the dozen-member cartel said in its monthly report.

Next year, global demand was set to grow to 89.57 mbpd, it forecast.

OPEC, which pumps 35 percent of the world's oil, said much of its demand growth this year came from Japan, which has turned to oil after shutting down nuclear power plants in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in 2011.

Massive power outages in India in the summer also helped growth there, even as members of the OECD club of industrialised nations and China saw weak economic growth that pushed down oil demand.

For 2013, OPEC was more optimistic, citing an improving economy in the United States and a potential return to growth in the eurozone, "although this might prove challenging."

As for oil production, Iran -- OPEC's second largest producer last year after Saudi Arabia -- appeared to be feeling the impact of international economic sanctions imposed over its suspected nuclear weapons drive.

In the third quarter of 2012, after an EU oil embargo took effect on July 1, Iranian crude production sank to 2.73 mbpd, from 3.09 mbpd in the second quarter and 3.39 mbpd in the first, OPEC said citing secondary sources.

-AFP/ac



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