US may leave no troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration says it might leave no troops in Afghanistan after December 2014, an option that defies the Pentagon's view that thousands of troops may be needed to contain al-Qaida and to strengthen Afghan forces.

"We wouldn't rule out any option," including zero troops, Ben Rhodes, a White House deputy national security adviser, said Tuesday.

"The U.S. does not have an inherent objective of 'X' number of troops in Afghanistan," Rhodes said. "We have an objective of making sure there is no safe haven for al-Qaida in Afghanistan and making sure that the Afghan government has a security force that is sufficient to ensure the stability of the Afghan government."

The U.S. now has 66,000 troops in Afghanistan, down from a peak of about 100,000 as recently as 2010. The U.S. and its NATO allies agreed in November 2010 that they would withdraw all their combat troops by the end of 2014, but they have yet to decide what future missions will be necessary and how many troops they would require.

Those issues are at the top of the agenda in talks this week as Afghan President Hamid Karzai meets with President Barack Obama on Friday and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday.
At stake is the risk of Afghanistan's collapse and a return to the chaos of the 1990s that enabled the Taliban to seize power and provide a haven for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. Fewer than 100 al-Qaida fighters are believed to remain in Afghanistan, although a larger number are just across the border in Pakistani sanctuaries.

Panetta has said he foresees a need for a U.S. counterterrorism force in Afghanistan beyond 2014, plus a contingent to train Afghan forces. He is believed to favor an option that would keep about 9,000 troops in the country.

Fred Kagan, a military historian and Afghan war specialist at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece Wednesday that reducing the U.S. military presence as much as the White House is suggesting would, in effect, waste what has been achieved in a decade of fighting in Afghanistan.

"The Obama administration will no doubt promise that the U.S. will continue to provide assistance to the Afghan military in addition to continuing counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan. But the military reality is that we cannot conduct either mission at the force level the president is considering," Kagan wrote in the piece, which was co-written with his wife, Kimberly Kagan, of the Institute for the Study of War.

Administration officials in recent days have said they are considering a range of options for a residual U.S. troop presence of as few as 3,000 and as many as 15,000, with the number linked to a specific set of military-related missions like hunting down terrorists.
Asked in a conference call with reporters whether zero was now an option, Rhodes said, "That would be an option we would consider."
His statement could be interpreted as part of an administration negotiating strategy. On Friday Karzai is scheduled to meet Obama at the White House to discuss ways of framing an enduring partnership beyond 2014.
The two are at odds on numerous issues, including a U.S. demand that any American troops who would remain in Afghanistan after the combat mission ends be granted immunity from prosecution under Afghan law. Karzai has resisted, while emphasizing his need for large-scale U.S. support to maintain an effective security force after 2014.
In announcing last month in Kabul that he had accepted Obama's invitation to visit this week, Karzai made plain his objectives.

"Give us a good army, a good air force and a capability to project Afghan interests in the region," Karzai said, and he would gladly reciprocate by easing the path to legal immunity for U.S. troops.

Without explicitly mentioning immunity for U.S. troops, Obama's top White House military adviser on Afghanistan, Doug Lute, told reporters Tuesday that the Afghans will have to give the U.S. certain "authorities" if it wants U.S. troops to remain.

"As we know from our Iraq experience, if there are no authorities granted by the sovereign state, then there's not room for a follow-on U.S. military mission," Lute said. He was referring to 2011 negotiations with Iraq that ended with no agreement to grant legal immunity to U.S. troops who would have stayed to help train Iraqi forces. As a result, no U.S. troops remain in Iraq.
David Barno, a retired Army three-star general and former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, wrote earlier this week that vigorous debate has been under way inside the administration on a "minimalist approach" for post-2014 Afghanistan.

In an opinion piece for ForeignPolicy.com on Monday, Barno said the "zero option" was less than optimal but "not necessarily an untenable one." Without what he called the stabilizing influence of U.S. troops, Barno cautioned that Afghanistan could "slip back into chaos."

Barno said the Afghan-Pakistan border area where numbers of Islamic extremists are in hiding could become the scene of a prolonged "intelligence war" after 2014, with the U.S. and its Afghan and Pakistan partners sharing intelligence.

"Given its vital importance, this undertaking will endure — regardless of the size of the residual U.S. military presence," he wrote.

Rhodes said Obama is focused on two main outcomes in Afghanistan: ensuring that the country does not revert to being the al-Qaida haven it was prior to Sept. 11, 2001, and getting the government to the point where it can defend itself.

"That's what guides us, and that's what causes us to look for different potential troop numbers — or not having potential troops in the country," Rhodes said.

He predicted that Obama and Karzai would come to no concrete conclusions on international military missions in Afghanistan beyond 2014, and he said it likely would be months before Obama decides how many U.S. troops — if any — he wants to keep there.

Rhodes said Obama remains committed to further reducing the U.S. military presence this year, although the pace of that withdrawal will not be decided for a few months.

5 New Apple Products Coming This Year

How will Apple (AAPL) follow up a 2012 lineup that included two new tablets, a new notebook and a new phone? Analysts Gene Munster and Douglas Clinton of Piper Jaffray took a stab at predicting what used to be unpredictable: Apple's product calendar. Their report includes a number of not-so-prominent product upgrades, which lead Piper's analysts to the conclusion that 2013 "will set the stage for bigger changes in the product lineup in 2014 and beyond." But even a slow year from Apple tends to turn some heads. Here are five possible Apple products to look for in 2013.
Apple Radio, March 2013

Media discussion surrounding Apple Radio has been ongoing since October, so an expected release in early 2013 would come as no surprise. The free radio service -- which would make money through ad revenues -- will most likely be part of iTunes and offer major competition to the likes of Pandora. The day after Bloomberg News reported the possibility of Apple Radio in October, Pandora stock fell 12%. Piper analysts believe that Apple Radio will be unveiled alongside another product launch in March, possibly....
iPad mini with Retina Display, March 2013

Apple sold more than 3 million iPads with retina display over a single weekend in March, and between 8-10 million iPad mini devices are reported to have shipped by the end of 2012, according to Digitimes. By combining the best of both products, Apple is hoping to maintain its place atop of the growing tablet market. The timing would make sense; Apple launched new iPads in March of 2011 (iPad 2) and 2012 (iPad with retina display). In theory, a retina display makes the pixels impossible to detect from a normal viewing distance, providing crystal clear images on the screen. The current iPad mini display has 1024-by-768 resolution, the same as the iPad 2.

iOS 7, June 2013

Apple users were outraged with the iOS 6 upgrade that eliminated YouTube and Google Maps apps. Apple's maps app was so bad, in fact, that CEO Tim Cook issued an apology to customers in September and even encouraged them to try competitor's apps until the problem could be resolved. Factor in the management shakeup that resulted in the firing of mobile software chief Scott Forstall, and the pressure is on Apple to come back strong with iOS 7. Look for Passbook, the mobile wallet feature of Apple's operating system, to play a more prominent role in the upgrade.

iPhone 5S, June 2013

Munster and Clinton believe a new iPhone 5S will come out in September, although some reports have pegged a launch date as early as June. The iPhone 5 was a September release; so was the iPhone 4S in 2011. Regardless of the date, users can expect an updated camera (as usual) and better battery life. The 5S will look the same as the iPhone 5 same screen size, same width but the new stuff will all be inside. Apple sold over 5 million iPhone 5 devices in the phone's first weekend in September.

Apple Television, November 2013

Not just the digital receiver box already available as Apple TV an actual Apple Television. The timing would make sense, right before the holiday season, but not all Apple followers are convinced a TV will actually hit the market in 2013. For starters, analysts have predicted an Apple Television would arrive for years with nothing to show for it. Plus, television margins are small, and Apple products are notorious for having some of the largest margins in the industry. Munster and Clinton predict an Apple TV will measure 42" to 55" and cost between $1500 and $2000. Similarly sized plasma and LCD TVs from Vizio, Samsung and Panasonic all clock in at under $1000, but Apple has never shied away from offering high quality at high cost.

Rescued by a Bailout, A.I.G. May Sue Its Savior

Fresh from paying back a $182 billion bailout, the American International Group has been running a nationwide advertising campaign with the tagline "Thank you America."
Behind the scenes, the restored insurance company is weighing whether to tell the government agencies that rescued it during the financial crisis: thanks, but you cheated our shareholders.
The board of A.I.G. will meet on Wednesday to consider joining a $25 billion shareholder lawsuit against the government, court records show. The lawsuit does not argue that government help was not needed. It contends that the onerous nature of the rescue - the taking of what became a 92 percent stake in the company, the deal's high interest rates and the funneling of billions to the insurer's Wall Street clients - deprived shareholders of tens of billions of dollars and violated the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits the taking of private property for "public use, without just compensation."
Maurice R. Greenberg, A.I.G.'s former chief executive, who remains a major investor in the company, filed the lawsuit in 2011 on behalf of fellow shareholders. He has since urged A.I.G. to join the case, a move that could nudge the government into settlement talks.
The choice is not a simple one for the insurer. Its board members, most of whom joined after the bailout, owe a duty to shareholders to consider the lawsuit. If the board does not give careful consideration to the case, Mr. Greenberg could challenge its decision to abstain.
Should Mr. Greenberg snare a major settlement without A.I.G., the company could face additional lawsuits from other shareholders. Suing the government would not only placate the 87-year-old former chief, but would put A.I.G. in line for a potential payout.
Yet such a move would almost certainly be widely seen as an audacious display of ingratitude. The action would also threaten to inflame tensions in Washington, where the company has become a byword for excessive risk-taking on Wall Street.
Some government officials are already upset with the company for even seriously entertaining the lawsuit, people briefed on the matter said. The people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, noted that without the bailout, A.I.G. shareholders would have fared far worse in bankruptcy.
"On the one hand, from a corporate governance perspective, it appears they're being extra cautious and careful," said Frank Partnoy, a former banker who is now a professor of law and finance at the University of San Diego School of Law. "On the other hand, it's a slap in the face to the taxpayer and the government."
For its part, A.I.G. has seized on the significance and complexity of the case, which is filed in both New York and Washington. A federal judge in New York dismissed the case, while the Washington court allowed it to proceed.
"The A.I.G. board of directors takes its fiduciary duties and business judgment responsibilities seriously," said a spokesman, Jon Diat.
On Wednesday, the case will command the spotlight for several hours at A.I.G.'s Lower Manhattan headquarters.
Mr. Greenberg's company, Starr International, will begin with a 45-minute presentation to the board, according to people briefed on the matter. Mr. Greenberg is expected to attend, they added.
It will be an unusual homecoming of sorts for Mr. Greenberg, who ran A.I.G. for nearly four decades until resigning amid investigations into an accounting scandal in 2005. For some years after his abrupt departure, there was bitterness and litigation between the company and its former chief.
After the Starr briefing on Wednesday, lawyers for the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York - the architects of the bailout and defendants in the cases - will make their presentations. Each side will have a few minutes to rebut.
While the discussions are part of an already scheduled board meeting, securities lawyers say it is rare for an entire board to meet on a single piece of litigation.
"It makes eminent good sense in this case, but I've never heard of this kind of situation," said Henry Hu, a former regulator who is now a professor at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin.
It is unclear whether the directors are leaning toward joining the case. The board said in a court filing that it would probably decide by the end of January.
Until now, the insurance giant has sat on the sidelines. But its delay in making a decision, some officials say, has drawn out the case, forcing the government to pay significant legal costs.
The presentations on Wednesday come on top of hundreds of pages of submissions that the government prepared last year, a time-consuming and costly process. The Justice Department, which assigned about a dozen lawyers to the case and hired outside experts, told a judge handling the matter that Starr was seeking 16 million pages in documents from the government.
"How many?" the startled judge, Thomas C. Wheeler, asked, according to a transcript.
Struck just days after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, the bailout of A.I.G. proved to be among the biggest and thorniest of the financial crisis rescues. The company was on the brink of collapse because of deteriorating mortgage securities that it had insured through credit-default swaps.
Starting in 2010, the insurer embarked on a series of moves aimed at repaying its taxpayer-financed bailout, including selling major divisions. It also held a number of stock offerings for the government to reduce its stake, which eventually generated a roughly $22 billion profit.
Overseeing that comeback was a new chief executive, Robert H. Benmosche, a tough-talking longtime insurance executive. Mr. Benmosche has won plaudits, including from government officials, for his managing of A.I.G.'s public relations even as he helped nurse the company back to financial health.
But he and the rest of A.I.G.'s board must now confront an equally pugnacious predecessor in Mr. Greenberg.
In the case against the government, Mr. Greenberg, through his lead lawyer, David Boies, contends that the bailout plan extracted a "punitive" interest rate of more than 14 percent. The government's huge stake in the company also diluted the holdings of existing shareholders like Starr, which at the time was A.I.G.'s largest investor.
"The government has been saying, 'We're your friend, we owned and controlled you and we let you go.' But A.I.G. doesn't owe loyalty to the government," a person close to Mr. Greenberg said. "It owes loyalty to its shareholders."
The government, Starr argues, used billions of dollars from A.I.G. to settle credit-default swaps the insurer had with banks like Goldman Sachs. The deal, according to the lawsuit, empowered the government to carry out a "backdoor bailout" of Wall Street.
Starr argued that the actions violated the Fifth Amendment. "The government is not empowered to trample shareholder and property rights even in the midst of a financial emergency," the Starr complaint says.
The Treasury Department declined to comment. A spokesman for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Jack Gutt, said, "There is no merit to these allegations." He noted that "A.I.G.'s board of directors had an alternative choice to borrowing from the Federal Reserve, and that choice was bankruptcy."
A federal judge in Manhattan agreed, dismissing the case in November. In an 89-page opinion, Judge Paul A. Engelmayer wrote that while Starr's complaint "paints a portrait of government treachery worthy of an Oliver Stone movie," the company "voluntarily accepted the hard terms offered by the one and only rescuer that stood between it and imminent bankruptcy."
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently agreed to review the case on an expedited timeline. The judge in the United States Court of Federal Claims in Washington, meanwhile, has declined to dismiss the case and continues to await A.I.G.'s decision.

Bread that Stays Fresh for 60 Days: Coming Soon to a Store Near You?

Every month, Americans throw out about 40 percent of the food they buy, wasting $2,275 per year. Fruits, vegetables and dairy products go bad quickly, but one of the things most likely to end up in the trash is moldy bread.
Related: 5 Clever Ways Not to Waste Food
The fungus that causes sour-smelling bread mold is Rhizopus stolonifer, and it grows best in warm, damp environments -- like under the wrapper of that sliced sandwich loaf you left on the counter. But a Texas-based company called MicroZap has come up with a simple way to make bread stay fresh and mold-free for as long as 60 days, reducing the chances of it ending up in the trash.
Related: Can Spoiled Food Be Safe to Eat?
MicroZap's technique is exactly what the company's name implies: They've found a way to zap bread with a special microwave-like device, killing mold spores. It takes about 10 seconds, and the bread stays mold-free for about two months.
"We treated bread in the device, and after 60 days, it had the same mold content as fresh bread coming out of the package," Mircrozap CEO and Director Don Stull told Yahoo! Shine recently. It had a slightly different water content after being zapped, "but it was not noticeable on any taste tests that we did."
The change in water content "may have had to do with the fact that the taste test was 60 days later," he added.
Right now, many big commercial bakeries rely on preservatives and additives to keep mold at bay. "Preservatives to extend shelf life, and additives to mask the taste of the preservatives," Stull said. Still, unrefrigerated bread usually starts to get moldy in 10 days or less.
MicroZap's technology was originally designed to kill bacteria like salmonella and MRSA, and can also treat most meats and vegetables to keep them fresh longer. But though it has a lot in common with run-of-the-mill home microwave ovens, you can't just nuke a couple of slices in your kitchen and call it good.
"Our machine uses the exact same magnetron frequencies that's in your home microwave -- 2.45 gigahertz," he said. "We penetrate the chamber in multiple different ways and with multiple different sources, which allows us to get a uniform signal." In other words: No hot or cold spots, and they can control the zap so that they don't accidentally cook, heat up, or dry out the product. (A home version of their device is in the works and would cost about $100 more than a regular microwave oven, Stull told the Associated Press.)
Even though people tend to associate a super-long shelf-life with fake food (likeTwinkies), there's no question that mold-free bread and bacteria-free fruit is appealing. MicroZap's technology could be a huge benefit in developing countries where food availability is scarce and safety standards nearly non-existent. "It could help us provide an abundant food source for those in need," Mindy Brashear, director of Texas Tech University's Center for Food Industry Excellence, told the Associated Press. And MicroZap could make plenty of other products safer as well.
"Salmonella is unfortunately fairly ubiquitous in the pet food industry," Stull told Yahoo! Shine. "People really love their pets, so we've done a lot of work with pet food and pet treats."
But even once we can control mold, there's still a chance that the pre-zapped bread could end up in the trash.
"There would certainly be some questions that I would have around the texture of the bread holding for 60 days," Brian Strouts, head of experimental baking for the Manhattan, Kansas-based nonprofit American Institute of Baking, told the Associated Press. Bread could still get stale, crumbly, or rancid. A quick zap "would not be the answer to all the problems with baked goods," he added.

Google exec gets look at NKoreans using Internet

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Students at North Korea's premier university showed Google's executive chairman how they look for information online: They Google it.

But surfing the Internet that way is the privilege of only a very few in North Korea, whose authoritarian government imposes strict limits on access to the World Wide Web.
Google's Eric Schmidt got a first look at North Korea's limited Internet usage when an American delegation he and former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson are leading visited a computer lab Tuesday at Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang. Other members of the delegation on the unusual four-day trip include Schmidt's daughter, Sophie, and Jared Cohen, director of the Google Ideas think tank.
Schmidt, who is the highest-profile U.S. business executive to visit North Korea since leader Kim Jong Un took power a year ago, has not spoken publicly about the reasons behind the journey to North Korea.
Richardson has called the trip a "private, humanitarian" mission by U.S. citizens and has sought to allay worries in Washington.
North Korea is holding a U.S. citizen accused by Pyongyang of committing "hostile" acts against the state, charges that could carry 10 years in a prison or longer. Richardson told The Associated Press he would speak to North Korean officials about Kenneth Bae's detention and seek to visit the American.
Schmidt and Cohen chatted with students working on HP desktop computers at an "e-library" at the university named after North Korea founder Kim Il Sung. One student showed Schmidt how he accesses reading materials from Cornell University online on a computer with a red tag denoting it as a gift from Kim Jong Il.
"He's actually going to a Cornell site," Schmidt told Richardson after peering at the URL.
Cohen asked a student how he searches for information online. The student clicked on Google — "That's where I work!" Cohen said — and then asked to be able to type in his own search: "New York City." Cohen clicked on a Wikipedia page for the city, pointing at a photo and telling the student, "That's where I live."
Kim Su Hyang, a librarian, said students at Kim Il Sung University have had Internet access since the laboratory opened in April 2010. School officials said the library is open from 8 a.m. to midnight, even when school is not in session, like Tuesday.
While university students at Kim Chaek University of Science and Technology and the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology also have carefully monitored Internet access — and are under strict instructions to access only educational materials — most North Koreans have never surfed the Web.
Computers at Pyongyang's main library at the Grand People's Study house are linked to a domestic Intranet service that allows them to read state-run media online and access a trove of reading materials culled by North Korean officials. North Koreans with computers at home can also sign up for the Intranet service.
But access to the World Wide Web is extremely rare and often is limited to those with clearance to get on the Internet.
At Kim Chaek University, instructors and students wishing to use the Internet must register first for permission and submit an application with their requests for research online, Ryu Sun Ryol, head of the e-library, said.
But he said it is only a matter of time before Internet use becomes widespread.
"We will start having access to the Internet soon," he said in an interview last month. He said North Korea is in the midst of a major push to expand computer use in every classroom and workplace.
The U.S. delegation's visit takes place as the U.S. pushes to punish North Korea for launching a long-range rocket in December.
Pyongyang celebrates the launch as a peaceful bid to send a satellite into space. The U.S. and other critics, however, condemn it as a covert test of long-range missile technology, and are urging the U.N. Security Council to take action against North Korea.
After arriving in Pyongyang on Monday evening, the group met Tuesday with officials at North Korea's Foreign Ministry.
Richardson, who has traveled to North Korea several times to negotiate the release of detained Americans, was accompanied by Korea expert Kun "Tony" Namkung. He called it "a good, productive but frank meeting," but did not divulge further details about the talks. Namkung has worked as a consultant for The Associated Press.
Schmidt, who oversaw Google's expansion into a global Internet giant, speaks frequently about the importance of providing people around the world with Internet access and technology. Google now has offices in more than 40 countries, including all three of North Korea's neighbors: Russia, South Korea and China, another country criticized for systematic Internet censorship.
He and Cohen have collaborated on a book about the Internet's role in shaping society called "The New Digital Age" that comes out in April.
Using science and technology to build North Korea's beleaguered economy was the highlight of a New Year's Day speech by leader Kim Jong Un.
New red banners promoting slogans drawn from Kim's speech line Pyongyang's snowy streets, and North Koreans are still cramming to study the lengthy speech. It was the first time in 19 years for North Koreans to hear their leader give a New Year's Day speech. During the rule of late leader Kim Jong Il, state policy was distributed through North Korea's three main newspapers.
There was a festive air in Pyongyang for another reason: Kim Jong Un's birthday. Though Jan. 8 is not recognized as a national holiday, like the birthdays of his father and grandfather, and his official birthdate has not been announced, North Koreans acknowledged that it was their leader's birthday Tuesday.
Waitresses at the downtown Koryo Hotel dressed up in sparkly traditional Korean dresses and decorated the lobby with balloons.