UK 'plebgate' scandal becomes police crisis

The "plebgate" scandal started with an angry exchange over a bicycle in front of Downing Street. The controversy over what a senior politician did or didn't say to officers guarding the prime minister's official residence has now grown into a full-blown crisis which is raising new questions about the ethics of Britain's largest police force.
Scotland Yard's reputation has already been battered over its failure to curb law-breaking journalists and police corruption exposed in the phone hacking scandal which exploded last year.
The force faces renewed scrutiny after Andrew Mitchell, formerly the Conservative Party's chief whip, said a police report quoting him as abusing officers as "morons" and "plebs" — a term of abuse for working-class people — was based on lies.
"For the next three weeks, these awful phrases were hung round my neck in a concerted attempt to toxify the Conservative party and destroy my political career," Mitchell wrote in The Sunday Times, describing the period which followed the leak of a police report into the incident.
"I never uttered those phrases; they are completely untrue."
Mitchell has long acknowledged losing his temper and swearing as he tried to maneuver his bike into Downing Street on the evening of Sept. 19. He was running late and officers were refusing to open the main gate, he said. But he has long denied using the term "pleb" or telling officers to "learn your place," words which he described on Sunday as "a bad caricature of what an ill-mannered 1930s upper-class lout might say."
In Britain, a country very sensitive to issues of social class, the story dominated the headlines for weeks. Some police constables, or PCs, walked around with T-shirts bearing the words "PC Pleb." Political opponents called for Mitchell to lose his job. When an email from what appeared to be an independent witness emerged to corroborate the police account, Mitchell found himself with little choice but to resign in October.
The police account, however, has now been challenged; the independent witness was allegedly a policeman who wasn't even at the scene. Security camera footage taken from Downing Street and broadcast by Britain's Channel 4 didn't seem to line up with the officers' accounts. Two people have been arrested as Scotland Yard has pledged to get to the bottom of what happened.
"The allegations in relation to this case are extremely serious," Scotland Yard chief Bernard Hogan-Howe said in a statement Sunday. "For the avoidance of doubt, I am determined there will be a ruthless search for the truth — no matter where the truth takes us."
If it turned out that officers conspired to frame Mitchell, it would be another dark chapter for the respected force, which has already seen several high-profile resignations and arrests and a wrenching police corruption probe spawned by the phone hacking scandal. Politicians are already talking of the need for reform.
Britain's former policing minister, Nick Herbert, said journalists and public servants might reflect on whether they jumped to conclusions about Mitchell, but added that "it is the police service which above all must take stock and examine its own culture."
The scandal, meanwhile, has revived Mitchell's political fortunes, with many calling for him to be reinstated to Prime Minister David Cameron's Cabinet.

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UK household finances worsen sharply in December - Markit

- Britons suffered the biggest deterioration in their finances in seven months in December and turned more downbeat about 2013, a survey showed on Monday.
The Markit Household Finance Index fell to 36.8 - the lowest since May - from November's near two-year high of 39.3, sinking further below the 50 level that would mark no change in the financial situation compared with a month ago.
Around a third of respondents said their finances had worsened in December, while only 6 percent reported an improvement. Overall, households also felt less secure in their jobs than in November.
"The latest survey suggests that domestic consumer demand will remain under pressure in the near term, especially since inflation perceptions remain elevated and job insecurities are prevalent across the UK," said Markit economist Tim Moore.
Three quarters of respondents expected their finances to worsen or to show no improvement next year.
In a further worrying sign for policymakers, inflation expectations for the year ahead picked up slightly from the three-month low posted in November.
The survey of around 1,500 people was conducted between December 13 and December 17.

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Russian opposition leader faces new probe

A prominent Russian opposition leader faces his third investigation in five months as authorities intensify pressure on the opposition.
The Investigative Committee said in a statement on Monday that they launched a new probe against Alexei Navalny, who was already charged with theft and with fraud and money laundering in two separate cases.
Investigators now say they also suspect Navalny of defrauding the Union of the Right Forces, a now defunct liberal party, of 100 million rubles ($3.2 million) in 2007.
Navalny, a charismatic 36-year-old lawyer, made his name exposing corruption in state-controlled companies. Last winter, he spearheaded a series of street rallies in Moscow that drew up to 100,000 people before March's vote that handed Putin a third presidential term.
In July, the lawyer was charged with the theft of half a million dollars from a state-owned timber company. Earlier this month, Navalny and his brother were charged with defrauding a transportation company of about $1.8 million.
The opposition leader dismissed the accusations as politically motivated, and pointed to the fact that there was no injured party in either of the cases.
Leonid Gozman, a former senior figure at the Union of the Right Forces, was quoted by the Interfax news agency, as denying reports of fraud at his party.
"This is another provocation, total nonsense," he said.
Navalny tweeted "that's enough," referring to the slew of criminal cases against him.

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Pope lights Christmas candle in his Vatican window

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI has lit a Christmas peace candle set on the windowsill of his private studio.
Pilgrims, tourists and Romans gathered below in St. Peter's Square for the inauguration Monday evening of a Nativity scene and cheered when the flame was lit.
Later, he will appear in St. Peter's Basilica to lead Christmas Eve Mass. The ceremony begins at 10 p.m. (2100 GMT) instead of the midnight start time, which was changed at the Vatican years ago to let the pontiff rest before a Christmas Day speech to be delivered from the basilica's central balcony.

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Pope leads a packed Christmas Eve Mass

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Heralded by the blare of trumpets, Pope Benedict XVI is presiding over Christmas Eve Mass in a St. Peter's Basilica packed with tourists, Italians and other faithful.
The ceremony began at 10 p.m. (2100 GMT) Monday night instead of the traditional midnight start time. The schedule was changed at the Vatican years ago to let the pontiff rest before he is to deliver a Christmas Day speech hours later from the basilica's central balcony.
A smiling Benedict, dressed in gold-colored vestments, waved to photo-snapping pilgrims and applauding church-goers as he glided up the center aisle toward the ornate main altar of the cavernous basilica on a wheeled platform guided by white-gloved aides. The platform is employed to save the 85-year-old pontiff's energy.
As a men's choir chanted, Benedict sprinkled incense around the altar, and wished the faithful "peace" in Latin.
A few hours before Mass, Benedict lit a Christmas peace candle and set it upon the windowsill of his studio window overlooking St. Peter's Square.

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Twitter and Nielsen pair up to publish new "social TV" ratings

 Nielsen Holdings NV, the television viewership measurement company, said on Monday it will partner with Twitter to publish a new set of ratings that measure chatter on Twitter about TV programming.
The new measurement, dubbed the "Nielsen Twitter TV Rating," seeks to tap into the stream of viewer commentary and armchair musings generated on "second screens" - the smartphones and tablets perched on Twitter users' laps while they watch, say, Monday Night Football or the latest episode of "Homeland" on their TVs.
The new ratings, to be launched next fall, arrive at a moment when media and advertising industry executives say they are observing a shift in TV viewing habits that include the rise of "second screen" use.
But significant questions remain for advertisers over how best to interpret the data and whether a Twitter ratings system is meaningful at all.
In September, Nielsen ratings showed that TV viewership for Viacom Inc's MTV Video Music Awards, which coincided with the Democratic National Convention, plummeted by more than 50 percent from a year ago. Yet social media chatter tripled, according to the research firm Trendrr.
Brad Adgate, an analyst at Horizon Media, said advertisers will view the Twitter ratings as a useful layer of information about a show's popularity, but it is "not going to be close to the currency" of existing ratings metrics.
"It lets producers and creative directors know if the storyline is working, like a huge focus group," Adgate said. "But I don't think you can translate comments to ratings for a show. Right now I think the bark right now is bigger than its bite."
The new ratings will measure the number of people discussing a show on Twitter, as well as those who are exposed to the chatter, to provide the "precise size of the audience and effect of social TV to TV programming," Nielsen said.
"As the experience of TV viewing continues to evolve, our TV partners have consistently asked for one common benchmark from which to measure the engagement of their programming," Chloe Sladden, Twitter's vice president of media, said in a post on the company blog on Monday. "This new metric is intended to answer that request, and to act as a complement and companion to the Nielsen TV rating."
Mark Burnett, executive producer of NBC's hit "The Voice," argued that advertisers should value programs that can attract a high level of social media engagement from viewers. Deeply embedded social media elements, such as live Twitter polls, were critical in driving "The Voice" to the top of the Tuesday night ratings among viewers between 18 to 49, Burnett said.
"If you're an advertiser, wouldn't you want to know whether people are watching this show passively or if they're actively engaged in the viewing experience?" Burnett said. "Five years from now this will make traditional television ratings seem archaic."
For Twitter, the partnership with a recognized measurement company like Nielsen emphatically punctuates a year-long effort by its media division to bring second-screen usage into the mainstream.
Twitter's convergence with television has been on display during sporting and major news events, which have provided some of the biggest viewership moments for both broadcasters and the social media company.
During the Summer Olympics in London, Twitter set up a page for the event that displayed photos from inside an event venue or athletes' tweets to complement what was being broadcast on NBC. Advertisers like Procter & Gamble Co, for instance, which advertised heavily during the Games, tried to bridge the two mediums by airing an ad on TV, then sending out a tweet soliciting viewer feedback about the ad.
As news organizations tallied votes on election night in the United States on November 6, worldwide Twitter chatter hit a peak of more than 327,000 per minute, the company said this month.

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Florida man sentenced to 10 years in "hackerazzi" case

 A Florida man who pleaded guilty to hacking into the email accounts of celebrities to gain access to nude photos and private information was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a federal judge in Los Angeles on Monday.
Former office clerk Christopher Chaney, 36, said before the trial that he hacked into the accounts of film star Scarlett Johansson and other celebrities because he was addicted to spying on their personal lives.
Prosecutors said Chaney illegally gained access to email accounts of more than 50 people in the entertainment industry, including Johansson, actress Mila Kunis, and singers Christina Aguilera and Renee Olstead from November 2010 to October 2011.
Chaney, who was initially charged with 28 counts related to hacking, struck a plea deal with prosecutors in March to nine felony counts, including wiretapping and unauthorized access to protected computers.
"I don't know what else to say except I'm sorry," Chaney said during his sentencing. "This will never happen again."
Chaney was ordered to pay $66,179 in restitution to victims.
Prosecutors recommended a 71-month prison for Chaney, who faced a maximum sentence of 60 years.
TEARFUL JOHANSSON
Prosecutors said Chaney leaked some of the private photos to two celebrity gossip websites and a hacker.
Johansson said the photos, which show her topless, were taken for her then-husband, actor Ryan Reynolds.
In a video statement shown in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, a tearful Johansson said she was "truly humiliated and embarrassed" when the photos appeared online, asking Judge S. James Otero to come down hard on Chaney.
Prosecutors said Chaney also stalked two unnamed Florida women online, one since 1999 when she was 13 years old.
Chaney, a native of Jacksonville, Florida, was arrested in October 2011 after an 11-month FBI investigation dubbed "Operation Hackerazzi" and he continued hacking after investigators initially seized his personal computers.
Shortly after his arrest, Chaney told a Florida television station that his hacking of celebrity email accounts started as curiosity and later he became "addicted."
"I was almost relieved months ago when they came in and took my computer ... because I didn't know how to stop," he said.

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Massachusetts fines Morgan Stanley over Facebook IPO

- Morgan Stanley , the lead underwriter for Facebook Inc's initial public offering, will pay a $5 million fine to Massachusetts for violating securities laws governing how investment research can be distributed.
Massachusetts' top securities regulator, William Galvin, charged on Monday that a top Morgan Stanley banker had improperly coached Facebook on how to disclose sensitive financial information selectively, perpetuating what he calls "an unlevel playing field" between Wall Street and Main Street.
Morgan Stanley has faced criticism since Facebook went public in May for revealing revised earnings and revenue forecasts to select clients before the media company's $16 billion initial public offering.
This is the first time a case stemming from Morgan Stanley's handling of the Facebook offering has been settled.
Facebook had privately told Wall Street research analysts about softer forecasts because of less robust mobile revenues. A top Morgan Stanley banker coached Facebook executives on how to get the message out, Galvin said.
A Morgan Stanley spokeswoman said on Monday the company is "pleased to have reached a settlement" and that it is "committed to robust compliance with both the letter and the spirit of all applicable regulations and laws." The company neither admitted nor denied any wrongdoing.
Galvin, who has been aggressive in policing how research is distributed on Wall Street ever since investment banks reached a global settlement in 2003, said the bank violated that settlement. He fined Citigroup $2 million over similar charges in late October.
"The conduct at Morgan Stanley was more egregious," he said in an interview explaining the amount of the fine. "With it we will get their attention and begin to take steps in restoring some confidence for retail investors to invest."
Galvin also said that his months-long investigation into the Facebook IPO is far from over and that he continues to review the other banks involved. Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan also acted as underwriters. The underwriting fee for all underwriters was reported to be $176 million at the time, or 1.1 percent of the proceeds.
As lead underwriter, Morgan Stanley took in $68 million in fees from the IPO, according to a Thomson Reuters estimate.
Massachusetts did not name the Morgan Stanley banker in its documents but personal information detailed in the matter suggest it is Michael Grimes, a top technology banker who was instrumental in the Facebook IPO.
The report says the unnamed banker joined Morgan Stanley in 1995 and became a managing director in 1998, dates that correlate with Grimes' career at the firm. It also says the banker works in Morgan Stanley's Menlo Park, California, office, where Grimes also works.
Grimes did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and was not accused of any wrongdoing by name.
The state said the banker helped a Facebook executive release new information and then guided the executive on how to speak with Wall Street analysts about it. The banker, Galvin said, rehearsed with Facebook's Treasurer and wrote the bulk of the script Facebook's Treasurer used when calling the research analysts.
A number of Wall Street analysts cut their growth estimates for Facebook in the days before the IPO after the company filed an amended prospectus.
Facebook's treasurer then quickly called a number for Wall Street analysts providing even more information.
The banker "was not allowed to call research analysts himself, so he did everything he could to ensure research analysts received new revenue numbers which they then provided to institutional investors," Galvin said.
Galvin's consent order also says that the banker spoke with company lawyers and then to Facebook's chief financial officer about how to prove an update "without creating the appearance of not providing the underlying trend information to all investors."
The banker and all others involved with the matter at Morgan Stanley are still employed by the company, a person familiar with the matter said.
Retail investors were not given any similar information, Galvin said, saying this case illustrates how institutional investors often have an edge over retail investors.

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ARM security improvement to speed mobile e-commerce

 British chip designer ARM Holdings and its partners Gemalto and Giesecke & Devrient have launched a new security standard for smartphones that can speed up e-commerce transactions.
Trustonic, a joint venture between the companies formed in April, said the security standard could be built into every level of a device, from the chip through the operating system to applications.
Ben Cade, Trustonic's chief executive, said it would eliminate the need for third-party devices, like bank card readers and secure ID tags, and enable content to be shared easily between devices.
He said the technology could reduce the time needed for an e-commerce transaction on a smartphone to seven seconds from the two and a half minutes typical today.
"It will enable us to trust our smart connected devices to protect us as they deliver essential services and innovative user experiences," he said.
Security is becoming increasingly important for smartphone users as more operations move from PCs to mobile devices.
Trustonic has signed up partners ranging from chipmakers NVIDIA and Samsung Electronics to payments company Mastercard and content provider 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Cade said.

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Online shopping to breathe new life into run-down sheds

 Owners of run-down warehouses on the edge of European cities could be sitting on goldmines because online shopping will force firms to seek distribution sites closer to customers who think speedy delivery is the norm.
In an increasingly fierce market where the likes of Amazon and Tesco pledge next-day or same-day delivery in specific time slots, warehouse rents could rise 40 percent over the next decade, property consultant CBRE said.
"Your industrial estate (near heavily populated areas) is the high street of the future," said Jonathan Holland, senior manager of Legal & General Property's industrial fund, which has 770 million pounds ($1.25 billion) under management.
"We are very much looking at owning warehouses around major conurbations."
Some 43 percent of European Union citizens shop online, the European Commission said in February, up from 26 percent six years ago. They were expected to fuel a 12-15 percent growth in online sales across the region over the next five years, Forrester Research predicted.
Meanwhile, falling sales in austerity-hit Britain have forced retail property values down 28 percent since end-2007, data from Investment Property Databank showed. Values in euro zone countries fell 5 percent over the same period, CBRE said.
The yield, or annual rent as a percentage of the property value, on an industrial warehouse in a good location in Europe was 7.8 percent at the end of September compared with 5.8 percent for offices and 5.2 percent for shops, CBRE said.
Industrial yields depend more on lease length and the financial strength of the tenant than location, compared with offices or shops, and would "edge downwards" where demand from retailers was strong, CBRE said.
Retailers currently favor large sites in locations away from big population centers but with good transport links.
Amazon's huge warehouses include sites in Dunfermline, Scotland and Rheinberg, Germany while Marks & Spencer will open a warehouse the size of 11 soccer fields in Castle Donington, Leicestershire, next year.
That is changing, said Amaury Gariel, managing director of CBRE's European industrial logistics team.
Places such as Croydon, 16 kilometers south of central London, strewn with empty office blocks and suffering high unemployment, and Créteil, a scruffy suburb 19 km southeast of Paris, are examples of areas that could be targeted as they are close to major highways and large local workforces, Gariel said.
Warehouse rents at such sites could rise 20-40 percent over the next decade, he said, citing the greatest demand in areas near the biggest European cities such as Amsterdam, London and Paris for sites that have typically been used by mail delivery firms and food distributors.
A tendency by governments to prioritize such areas for homes would squeeze supply and push prices higher, he said.
Retailers and property investors are at "a tipping point" in waking up to the changing real estate map for distribution points in Europe, Holland said.
Amazon is on the hunt for about 20 sheds close to British cities while Asda and Tesco are opening so-called 'dark stores' - distribution centers which look like supermarkets on the inside but are closed to customers - across Britain.
Industrial developer Prologis has bought a significant number of such sites near large towns and cities, such as Milton Keynes in Britain and Hannover in Germany, to meet future demand, European president Philip Dunne told Reuters.
Retailers face obsolescence unless they recognize how the type of property they rent needs to change, Gariel said.
"We are on the first page of the story regarding new ways to distribute goods. What happens if retailers do not recognize it? Just look at what happened to the fax and the telegram.

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Worker Reprimanded For Flatulence

An employee at the Social Security Administration's Baltimore office has been formally reprimanded for "conduct unbecoming of a federal employee," specifically for disrupting co-workers "by passing gas and releasing an unpleasant odor."
According to the letter, issued in December and obtained by the Smoking Gun website, the employee, who has been identified as a 38 year old male but was not identified by name, had been informed by his supervisor during a "performance discussion" in May 2012 that his co-workers had complained about the gas issue in the past. The individual was referred to an "Employee Assistance Program" to look into whether the frequent and unpleasant incidents could be symptomatic of a medical issue.
It seems the problem continued for some time after that though. The letter, which has been redacted so as not to include names, runs five pages long and details numerous similar exchanges.
"On July 17, 2012, I spoke with you in regards to your releasing of bodily gas in the module during work hours," the letter reads. "I asked if you could make it to the rest room before releasing the awful and unpleasant odor…You said that you would try not to pass gas and that you would turn your fan on when it happens."
The letter lists 60 specific incidences of gas passing from this employee over the roughly seven month period between mid-May when the issue was brought up, and early December when the reprimand was issued.
A reprimand is essentially formal slap on the wrist and doesn't carry any tangible long-term punishment. However, the federal worker is being represented by a lawyer from the American Federation of Government Employees in conjunction with the letter.
The AFGE did not respond to email inquiries from ABC News about the case.

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Rebels surround air bases across Aleppo-commander

 Syrian rebels are surrounding bases and military airports loyal to President Bashar al-Assad across the northern province of Aleppo, a commander said, but are struggling to counter attacks from jet fighters which can fly even from besieged airfields.
Colonel Abdel-Jabbar Oqaidi, who heads the rebels' military council in the province, also told Reuters that his forces are fighting without any help from the Western and Arab governments which want Assad removed from power.
Oqaidi, who leads between 25,000-30,000 troops across Aleppo province, said the rebel strategy had shifted from fighting Assad's forces in the cities to surrounding his bases in the countryside - aiming to encourage defections and weaken the sites so they can be stormed.
This thrust has helped to loosen Assad's grip in the north and east of the country during a 21-month civil war which activists say has already killed more than 44,000 Syrians.
"We decided on this (strategy) lately," Oqaidi said in an interview at his command center in the Aleppo countryside. "The situation for us on the ground is really good."
Sitting behind a desk, next to the revolutionary tri-color Syrian flag, Oqaidi said his forces were now fighting less in heavily-populated urban areas.
"At the beginning ... we were forced to attack the (Assad) forces in the districts to kick them out so that they do not harm civilians," said Oqaidi, a soft-spoken man who wore two pins - one a flag, the other a crescent of the rebels' revolutionary flag - on his fatigues.
"After achieving fighting experience, we went back to the countryside to liberate the big military bases. These bases are fortified with tanks, rockets, artillery, mortars, in addition airplanes. The siege ... cuts off the supply lines to these bases and most importantly it helps elements to defect," he said, making it easier to eventually storm the bases.
The rebel Free Syrian Army is largely run by officers who had defected from Assad's forces. However, the opposition has struggled to peel off large numbers of defectors and only a handful of high-ranking officials have abandoned the government.
AIR FORCE PROBLEM
Oqaidi said his forces were currently surrounding three military airports - Kuweires, Neyrab and Menagh - and an air force intelligence building.
Assad has increasingly depended on his air force, which can still take off from bases despite being surrounded to strike at the poorly-equipped rebels.
"That's the whole problem. We have no problem except for the air force. We're used to the tanks fighting and their shelling, we have no problem except for the air force," said Oqaidi who estimated Assad had less than 100 functional planes left. The capture of one of the airports would be a strategic blow.
"We're used to taking over military bases that have tanks and APCs (armored personnel carriers) but we haven't been used to take over control yet of airplanes and God willing we'll have control of them soon," he said.
Oqaidi said Assad's forces were using helicopters plus Russian-designed MiGs and Sukhoi jets to strike at the rebels who still had no sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles.
In the central province of Hama, rebels shot down a government military jet on Monday, activists said.
However, Oqaidi said his forces were not getting any help from abroad, despite reports that Qatar and Saudi Arabia were arming rebel groups.
"We have not received aid from any Arab or foreign country, neither money or weapons. Just empty promises. It looks like no one wants Bashar al-Assad to fall in the near future until the country is completely destroyed and its infrastructure is completely destroyed. They don't care about Syrian blood."
SUNNI DEFECTORS
Oqaidi, who defected at the beginning of 2012, said more than 90 percent of Aleppo's countryside and about 80 percent of the once rich merchant city was under rebel control.
He played up the level of defections, particularly from the majority Sunni Muslim community, from Damascus forces which are largely commanded by members of Assad's Alawite sect.
"There are a lot of pilot defections, in general most of the Sunni pilots have defected," he said.
Referring to the Alawite pilots who remain, he said: "What are they defending? They know they're defending Bashar al-Assad who they know will leave them and escape. So they no longer have the will to fight. There is no principle, no aim to fight for."
Many soldiers had also defected after a recent siege of an army infantry college near Aleppo while the head of the college had escaped by plane, he said. "So their morale was devastated, because if the leader escapes, the rest of the elements had no will to fight."
Other troops gave themselves up while those who resisted were killed and a big portion were also captured, Oqaidi said, adding they were treated as prisoners according to Islam and the Geneva Conventions. The rebels also seized about 70 tanks, RPG rounds and Kalashnikov rifles.
At the sprawling complex, slogans and pictures praising Assad and his father as well as the army were riddled with bullets. Rooms, garages, and classes showed evidence of squalor and abandonment. Tanks and armored personnel carriers lay abandoned in fields as well as overturned army camouflage mattresses and spilled lentils.
"We thought we'd see heavy resistance. But they were defeated like rabbits," said Abu al-Nasr, a soldier from the Tawheed brigade who participated in the operation.

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Kuwait to host Syria crisis meeting, envoy meets Assad

Kuwait will host an international conference next month to tackle Syria's humanitarian crisis, the ruling emir said on Monday, as foes of President Bashar al-Assad voiced frustration with international efforts to end the civil war.
In Damascus, special international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi met Assad but the Syrian opposition vented its anger at what it called a "silence" over the unabated killing of civilians by government forces, most recently in the central town of Halfaya.
Assad is under growing pressure from rebel forces in the 21-month-old war that activists say has killed more than 44,000 people. However, diesel from his main international ally, Russia, has arrived in Syria, providing the first significant amounts of the fuel in months to power industry and the military, generate electricity and heat homes during the winter.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also said he did not believe Assad's government would use chemical weapons, in remarks broadcast shortly after activists released reports of what they said was a poison gas attack in the city of Homs.
Kuwait's emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al Sabah, said the conference for Syrian donors would be held in late January in response to an invitation by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
"The Syrian wound is still bleeding, and the killing machine still continues, killing dozens of our brothers in Syria each day," the emir told a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Bahrain.
Last week, the United Nations appealed for $1.5 billion to help save the lives of millions of Syrians suffering a "dramatically deteriorating" humanitarian situation. The appeals are to help 4 million people within Syria and up to 1 million Syrian refugees in five other countries until next July.
Underlining how rebels are taking the battle close to Assad's doorstep, U.N. and Arab League envoy Brahimi had to drive overland to Damascus from Lebanon on the eve of his meeting with the president because fighting around the international airport has made it impossible to fly in.
Brahimi said his talks with Assad had dealt with possible solutions to a crisis. "I told him what I was seeing abroad and about the meetings I had with different officials in the region and abroad," he told reporters. "The situation in Syria still is a reason for worry. We hope that all the sides work toward the solution, as the Syrian people want."
OPPOSITION ANGER
Syria's opposition fumed at what it called silence over the unrelated killing of civilians by Assad's forces. On Sunday, dozens were killed in Halfaya and many more wounded. Activists blamed an air strike on a bakery where a crowd was queuing in the town, which was seized by insurgents last week.
"Silence over the massacres committed against the Syrian people is blackmail and a means to pressure the people, their revolution, and their leaders," said Moaz Alkhatib, who heads the opposition National Coalition.
However, Alkhatib did not accuse anybody directly for remaining mum over what would be one of the deadliest air strikes of the civil war.
Activists also said rebels in central Hama province shot down a government fighter jet on Monday during clashes outside a village loyal to Assad. Rebels have captured a string of military compounds around the country. Damascus is now being dragged into the conflict, with fighting in its southern districts and the suburbs on its eastern outskirts.
Brahimi's plan for an end to the Syrian crisis centers on a transitional government, but has left vague Assad's role. The opposition rejects anything but Assad's overthrow and says the government crackdown has been too fierce to accept dialogue.
POISON GAS REPORTS
With rebel gains growing, the army has been increasingly relying on its superior weaponry. It has used air strikes and even long range, Scud-type missiles, according to U.S. and NATO reports.
Western powers have warned Assad that using chemical weapons would be a "red line", which they implied would draw international involvement in the conflict. Syria repeated on Sunday that it would never use chemical weapons against its people.
In Moscow, Foreign Minister Lavrov told the Russia Today (RT) television channel that recent signs that parts of Syria's chemical arsenal were being moved - a development that alarmed Western governments - was an effort by the government to make the weapons more secure.
"Our information is ... that the latest reports about some movement of the chemical weapons was related to steps undertaken by the government to concentrate the chemical stuff ... at two sites, to make sure it is absolutely protected," he said.
This correlated with information the Americans had, he said.
The activists' reports of what they said was a poison gas attack in Homs could not be confirmed, as the government restricts media access in Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gathered activist accounts of the incident, which said that six rebel fighters were killed after inhaling smoke on the front line of Homs's urban battleground.
The Observatory, a British-based group with a network of activists across the country, called on the International Committee of the Red Cross to send a medical team to the area to determine what had happened.
DIESEL LIFELINE
An Italian shipowner said two cargoes of Russian diesel had reached the Syrian port of Banias this month. It was unclear who was behind the shipments and there was no evidence they violated international sanctions against Syria.
"(Our vessels) loaded two cargoes of gasoil in Russia at the beginning of December for delivery to the East Mediterranean. The charterer then asked us to deliver the volumes to Banias," said Paolo Cagnoni, who heads Mediterranea di Navigazione S.p.A., the family-run Italian tanker firm.
He declined to disclose the names of the vessel charterers and the recipient of the deliveries, which amount to around 42,000 metric tonnes of gasoil worth close to $40 million at current market prices.

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2012 a year of unparalleled justice for child sex abuse victims

 Experts say 2012 was a year of unparalleled justice for child sex abuse victims, but whether the string of high-profile convictions will translate into a turning point for juvenile safety remains to be seen.
The year's headlines heralded the criminal convictions of former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky, Monsignor William Lynn of the Catholic Church's Philadelphia Archdiocese and ultra-Orthodox Jewish therapist Nechemya Weberman, a prominent figure in New York's Satmar Hasidic sect.
Sandusky, 68, was sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars for raping and molesting 10 boys, some in the campus football showers. Lynn, 61, was ordered to prison for up to six years for covering up for pedophile priests. Weberman, 54, faces up to 25 years' imprisonment when he is sentenced on January 9 for sexually abusing a girl during counseling sessions.
Each conviction hinged on the testimony of victims brave enough to shatter years of silence surrounding the abuse. Each verdict was reached by a jury determined to decide fairly in the shadow of a revered institution that, at best, ignored the crimes, sometimes for years.
"2012 is a landmark in the drive to reduce and deter community-based abuse," said Marci Hamilton, a law professor at Yeshiva University and an advocate for victims of clergy sex crimes.
"The key here is modern-day courage," Hamilton said. "It took extraordinary courage for survivors to break ranks from their communities and accuse those inside the community."
Decades of secretiveness have shrouded child sex abuse within institutions that turned a blind eye, said David Clohessy, director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).
One development encouraging victims to come forward today is more women in law enforcement and criminal justice who may seem more approachable, experts say. Another is a growing acceptance of homosexuality, which could help ease the victims' humiliation, and the idea that survivors with calamitous lives may nevertheless be telling the truth, experts say.
"We're learning that victims inevitably seem troubled and flawed. It's very rare that someone can be sexually violated as a child and live a charmed, perfect life," Clohessy said.
Heightened publicity has also drawn out victims who now know they are not alone, said David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire.
"The climate is so much better for survivors than it was a decade ago when they felt isolated and like a freak," Finkelhor said.
"Almost everyone knows this happens to other people now. It's not nearly as stigmatizing," he said.
The momentum in prosecuting child sex abuse cases depends upon many factors, including whether state legislatures broaden the time frame for victims seeking justice, a move under discussion in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
By the time a child victim is able to confront an assailant, a state's statute of limitations may prevent prosecution. If victims are still eligible to file civil lawsuits, however, the surrounding publicity may draw out other victims and could lead to subsequent criminal prosecutions, advocates say.
"When a predator is exposed in any way, in any form, it encourages victims, witnesses, whistle-blowers to step forward and perhaps file criminal charges," Clohessy said.
"Obviously, kids are safest when predators are jailed," he said. "Sometimes civil suits lead to criminal prosecution. Even when they don't, they warn people about a potentially dangerous child molester.

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Two drone strikes kill five in Yemen: officials

At least five people were killed in two drone strikes in south Yemen on Monday in what security and local officials said were attacks on suspected al Qaeda-linked insurgents.
Improving stability and security in Yemen is a priority for the United States and its Gulf Arab allies because of its strategic position next to the world's top oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, and shipping lanes, and because it is home to one of the most active wings of al Qaeda.
Monday's strikes were the first in almost two months by pilotless aircraft against suspected al Qaeda men in Yemen, an impoverished country of mountains and desert on the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula.
The United States has escalated its use of drones against al Qaeda in Yemen, where the group exploited mass anti-government unrest last year to seize swathes of territory in the south before being driven out by a military offensive in June.
The officials said the first drone strike hit a vehicle in a town in al-Bayda province, killing at least two suspected al Qaeda militants. One of those killed in the attack was a Jordanian citizen, a local official and a resident said.
Family members of the other man, a Yemeni called Abdul Raouf Naseeb, confirmed he was one of those killed.
A Yemeni al Qaeda militant of that name narrowly escaped a U.S. drone strike in November 2002 that killed several al Qaeda operatives including Qaed Salim Sinan al Harithi, an alleged plotter behind the bombing of the USS Cole off Yemen in October 2000 in which 17 U.S. sailors were killed.
In the second drone strike on Monday, at least three people riding two motorcycles and carrying pistols were killed by a missile in Hadramout province, a security official said, adding that they were suspected members of al Qaeda.
Residents said the Hadramout attack happened on the outskirts of the coastal town of al-Sheher. The residents said a fourth person was wounded in the strike.
The U.S.-backed military offensive drove the militants out of areas they seized in the south but has not prevented them from launching attacks that have dealt damaging blows to the army and security apparatus.
Naseeb had fled to al-Bayda from Lawdar province during a U.S.-backed military offensive in Lawdar earlier in 2012.

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France extends deadline for publishers' talks with Google

 The French government said it would extend to the end of January the deadline for talks between Google Inc and the French press to settle a dispute over the search engine's links to online news articles.
Press associations in France, and other European countries, want Google to pay when it displays links to newspapers in Internet searches.
In reply, Google has threatened to stop indexing articles from the French press.
Talks between the search engine and French publishers, which the government said are advancing, were expected to wrap up by the end of the year.
If no deal were struck, France would press ahead with a law that would force Google to pay for the right to provide links to online news articles.

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Wells Fargo Web site troubles persist, U.S. OCC issues cyber alert

 Wells Fargo & Co customers on Friday had trouble accessing the bank's Web site for a fourth day, as a federal regulator reiterated the need for banks to have systems in place to ward off cyber attacks.
A spokeswoman for the No. 4 U.S. bank by assets said some customers may have intermittent access to their online banking, although the high volume of traffic that has flooded the site has declined.
"Our technical teams have been working around the clock to ensure our Web site is accessible to our customers," bank spokeswoman Bridget Braxton said. The bank has been posting apologies on its Twitter account.
Since September, a hacker activist group called the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters has said it was targeting major banks with so-called denial of service cyber attacks. These attacks can disrupt service by deluging Web sites with high traffic.
On Tuesday, the group said in an Internet posting that it would target the "5 major US banks." In a similar posting last week, it forecast attacks against banks that included PNC Financial Services Group Inc and U.S. Bancorp, which reported some disruptions.
A PNC spokesman on Friday said the bank's systems were operating normally. Spokespersons for Bank of America Corp, JPMorgan Chase & Co and U.S. Bancorp declined to comment. Citigroup Inc could not be immediately reached.
In its alert on Friday, the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates national banks and thrifts, said groups launching denial of service attacks had varying motives, from gaining public attention to diverting the attention of banks while launching simultaneous attacks to commit fraud or steal proprietary information.
"Banks need to have a heightened sense of awareness regarding these attacks and employ appropriate resources to identify and mitigate the associated risks," the alert said.
Banks should have sufficient staffing during attacks, work with third-party providers and share information with other banks, the OCC said.
Of five major banks, Wells Fargo on Friday had spurred the most complaints from users about access problems, according to the Web site SiteDown.co, which tracks customer reports. It listed 576 "downtime reports" in the past 24 hours.
Wells Fargo says it has 21 million active online banking customers.

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Facebook Poke App Is Frustrating as Hell

Facebook Poke: Startup Screen
Poke, the new iPhone app from Facebook, lets you send short messages, photos and videos to friends that automatically self destruct after a few seconds. If you have the Facebook app on your phone already, logging in is effortless.
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[More from Mashable: 2012′s Biggest Winners and Losers]
I was never a big poker on Facebook. When I joined the social network in 2007, giving someone a "poke" was still pretty common. It was a connection that stopped short of an actual friend request, a way to test the waters of a reconnection with, say, an ex.
The new app, Facebook Poke (as it's listed in the App Store), doesn't have much in common with poking of old. It's essentially a clone of other texting apps where all the messages have a built-in self-destruct. It's ideal for clandestine activities, shall we say.
[More from Mashable: Facebook Introduces Snapchat Competitor, Poke]
Here's how it works: Let's say you have a sudden urge to send one of your Facebook friends a photo of a, er, cucumber. But you don't want to just send them a cucumber pic that they could post and re-share to the world. Poke lets you send the pic, but the recipient will only have 1, 3, 5 or 10 seconds to view your majestic vegetable. And they need to press and hold the screen while viewing, or the pic goes away.
You can send photos, videos or text messages via Poke, although you can't use it for anything too elaborate since the message content lasts 10 seconds maximum. After that, boom. The message, whatever it was, is gone forever. There isn't even a record on the sender's phone (although a log of who you've poked and who's poked you still remains).
SEE ALSO: Feel Your Facebook Pokes With This Poking Machine [VIDEO]
Poke is pretty unforgiving. The recipient must press and hold the notification to see the content. Once you touch, the countdown starts, and there's no going back -- even if you let go. Videos just stop, with no chance of re-watching. You slip, and you're done.
I suspect Poke will engender a lot of frustration because of this limitation. You feel as if it should at least pause the countdown when you remove your finger.
The app also lets you just "poke" people -- meaning send a message with no content -- about the only way the app is similar to the old act of poking. Those are just simple notifications, and don't expire.
It gets more annoying: All your poke recipients need to download the app to see them. Poking only works on mobile right now, and Facebook's been careful to ensure notifications for incoming pokes only appear in its mobile apps.
Checking out your profile on the web won't reveal any trace of poking. On a smartphone, a note appears that encourages pokees to download the app.
What if someone does a screengrab of your poke, turning it into something more permanent? There's nothing you can do, but the app will inform you if someone does that, with a "flash" icon beside their name in your feed. If you see your ephemeral wild moment appear on Tumblr the next day, at least you'll know who to blame.
Poke isn't that intuitive. It displays some basic instructions when you first log in, but would benefit greatly from one of those tutorial overlays that have become ubiquitous among iOS apps. Also, I find it odd that your front-facing camera isn't selected by default. But maybe my expectation for the subject material of most pokes is off the mark.
You can add text and colored line drawings to any pics you send. That's helpful to get the attention on the thing in the photo you really want the person to look at in those three seconds of poke life.
At first I found it frustrating that Poke doesn't let you take horizontal photos or videos. But that's actually a good idea. If you think about it, if the only people seeing this content are people glancing at their phones for a few seconds, so vertical pics make total sense. In the time it took a person to turn their phone and the accelerometer to react, the message will probably be gone. If you want masterpieces, try Flickr.
Bottom line: Poke is an annoying app, but it probably has more to do with the nature of what it's trying to do than any design flaws. How do you like Poke? Let us know in the comments.

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HTC upgrades Android devices faster than any of its rivals

The problem with Android has always been the erratic schedules manufacturers and carriers use to update devices. Due to custom user interfaces that are used to differentiate devices from the large pool of Android vendors, manufacturers often require more time to update devices than Google (GOOG) does for its own Nexus line of smartphones and tablets. Smartphone makers must then submit their update to the carriers for further testing, a process that can take months. This process leaves a majority of smartphones and tablets left running an old and outdated version of Android. ArsTechnica took an extensive look at the slow history of Android updates for smartphones from LG (006570), Motorola, Samsung (005930) and HTC (2498), on the networks of the four major U.S. carriers — Verizon (VZ), AT&T (T), Sprint (S) and T-Mobile. The results may surprise you.
[More from BGR: Fan-made tweak gives Apple a blueprint for better multitasking in iOS 7 [video]]
HTC fared the best when it came to updating its devices, with an average time of 4.8 months, although Samsung’s updating schedule dramatically improved with its Galaxy S III smartphone, which was updated in an average of four and a half months. Overall the company updated its devices in an average of 6.9 months, better than Motorola and LG, which averaged 8.6 months and 11.8 months, respectively. Motorola does not plan to update the DROID 3, Atrix 4G and Photon 4G, however, which is a reason for concern.
[More from BGR: Windows already threatening iPhone in Southern Europe]
On the carrier side of things, T-Mobile was found to be the most reliable with an average time of 5.8 months for updating devices. Sprint is the second best with an average of 6.5 months and unsurprisingly AT&T and Verizon are found at the bottom of the pack with average times of 7.8 months and 8 months, respectively.
In the end, if you are looking for a smartphone that will always be up-to-date with the latest version of Android, a Nexus device is your best bet. The unlocked version of the Galaxy Nexus receives its updates directly from Google, while the Sprint and Verizon variants experienced an average update time of only 2.5 months.
If you prefer a different device, an HTC or Samsung smartphone running on T-Mobile or Sprint will be updated in a timely manner, based on ArsTechnica’s findings.

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Google, Motorola plotting a so-called ‘X Phone’ to take on the iPhone and Galaxy S III

Motorola engineers are said to be working on a “sophisticated” smartphone that will “provide more potent competition” to the iPhone, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. Google (GOOG) hopes the handset, which is known internally as “X Phone,” will stand apart from existing devices, although the company is said to be running into some obstacles. The device will reportedly be equipped with a “top-notch” camera and photo software, which previous Google-branded  handsets have lacked. Motorola is also said to be interested in using a bendable display and materials that would make the X Phone more durable. Some of the phone’s features were said to be draining the device’s battery life, however, and the company is also said to be having difficulties with manufacturing and supply-chain management. The X Phone will reportedly be released next year, at which point Motorola engineers will begin work on an “X tablet.

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Margaret Thatcher in hospital after operation

LONDON (Reuters) - Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, the country's first woman elective leader, is in hospital recovering from surgery to remove a growth on her bladder, a source close to the family said on Friday.
After experiencing pain in her bladder earlier in the week, he 87-year-old went to hospital where she underwent a minimally invasive operation, Tim Bell, a public relations executive who once served as image maker to Thatcher, said.
"The operation was completely satisfactory. She's now recovering in hospital and as soon as she's recovered she'll go home," Bell said.
Known as the "Iron Lady," Thatcher, who stepped down in 1990, embraced free market policies, challenged trade unions and privatised many state-owned companies during her 11 years in power, polarising British voters.
Britain's only woman prime minister, who led her country in a war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands in 1982 and was close to the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan, was forced to step down by her own party.
Thatcher suffered a series of mild strokes in late 2001 and 2002, after which she cut back on public appearances and later cancelled her speaking schedule.
She was hospitalised in 2010 for tests relating to a flu illness.

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Margaret Thatcher in UK hospital after operation

LONDON (AP) — Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is recuperating at a hospital after an operation to remove a bladder growth, a friend said Friday.
The 87-year-old Thatcher went to see her doctor after experiencing some discomfort and subsequently had the growth removed, according to longtime adviser Tim Bell.
The operation was "completely satisfactory," Bell said. He said he couldn't go into detail as to the nature of the growth and declined to name the hospital, saying he did not want it to be inundated with calls.
Thatcher, Britain's first female prime minister, has been in fragile health since she suffered a series of small strokes more than a decade ago. Although she has occasionally appeared at private functions, she has not made public statements for some time.
Thatcher was not well enough to join Britain's queen for a lunch with former and serving prime ministers earlier this year, and two years ago she missed an 85th birthday party thrown for her by Prime Minister David Cameron at his official residence at No. 10 Downing Street. But in October she was well enough to mark her birthday with a lunch out in London with her son Mark and his wife.
Thatcher's declining health was a focus of Oscar-winning biopic "The Iron Lady," which premiered last year.
Thatcher served as prime minister from May 1979 until her resignation in November 1990. She was the first leader to win three consecutive elections, dominating British politics throughout the 1980s.
She was a firm supporter of her American ideological peer, President Ronald Reagan, but is a divisive figure in Britain, where the fruits of her legacy are still debated.

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Pope stresses family values as gay marriage gains

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The pope pressed his opposition to gay marriage Friday, denouncing what he described as people eschewing their God-given gender identities to suit their sexual choices — and destroying the very "essence of the human creature" in the process.
Benedict XVI made the comments in his annual Christmas address to the Vatican bureaucracy, one of his most important speeches of the year. He dedicated it this year to promoting traditional family values in the face of gains by same-sex marriage proponents in the U.S. and Europe and efforts to legalize gay marriage in places like France and Britain.
In his remarks, Benedict quoted the chief rabbi of France, Gilles Bernheim, in saying the campaign for granting gays the right to marry and adopt children was an "attack" on the traditional family made up of a father, mother and children.
"People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given to them by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being," he said. "They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves."
"The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man's fundamental choice where he himself is concerned," he said.
It was the second time in a week that Benedict has taken on the question of gay marriage, which is currently dividing France, and which scored big electoral wins in the United States last month. In his recently released annual peace message, Benedict said gay marriage, like abortion and euthanasia, was a threat to world peace. The Vatican went on a similar anti-gay marriage media blitz last month after three U.S. states approved gay marriage by popular vote.
After the peace message was released last week, gay activists staged a small protest in St. Peter's Square. On Friday, gay activists sharply criticized the pope's take on gender theory and insisted that where gay marriage has been legalized, families are no worse off.
Italy's main gay rights group Arcigay called the pope's comments "absurd, dangerous and totally out of synch with reality." And a coalition of four U.S. Catholic organizations representing gay, lesbian and transgender people said the pope had an "outmoded" view of what it means to be man and woman.
"Increasingly Catholics in the United States and around the world see what we see. Catholics, following their own well-formed consciences, are voting to support equal rights for LGBT people because in their churches and communities they see a far healthier, godly and realistic vision of the human family than the one offered by the pope," according to a statement from the groups Call To Action, DignityUSA, Fortunate Families, and New Ways Ministry.
Church teaching holds that homosexual acts are "intrinsically disordered," though it stresses that gays should be treated with compassion and dignity. As pope and as head of the Vatican's orthodoxy watchdog before that, Benedict has been a strong enforcer of that teaching: One of the first major documents released during his pontificate said men with "deep-seated" homosexual tendencies shouldn't be ordained priests.
For the Vatican, though, the gay marriage issue goes beyond questions of homosexuality, threatening what the church considers to be the bedrock of society: a family based on a man, woman and their children.
In his speech, the pope cited Bernheim as lamenting how a new philosophy of sexuality has taken hold, whereby sex and gender are "no longer a given element of nature that man has to accept and personally make sense of: it is a social role that we choose for ourselves, while in the past it was chosen for us by society."
He said God had created man and woman as a specific "duality" — "an essential aspect of what being human is all about."
Now, though, "Man and woman as created realities, as the nature of the human being, no longer exist. Man calls his own nature into question. From now on he is merely spirit and will."
The Vatican's opposition to gay marriage has been falling largely on deaf ears. In addition to the U.S. election gains, the Constitutional Court in largely Roman Catholic Spain upheld the law legalizing gay marriage last month. Earlier this month, the British government announced it will introduce a bill next year legalizing gay marriage, though it would ban the Church of England from conducting same-sex ceremonies.
In France, President Francois Hollande has said he would enact his "marriage for everyone" plan within a year of taking office last May. The text will go to parliament next month. But the country has been divided by vocal opposition from religious leaders, prime among them Bernheim, as well as some politicians and parts of rural France.
The Socialist government's plan also envisions legalizing same-sex adoptions. Benedict quoted Bernheim as denouncing the plan, saying that it would mean a child would essentially be considered an object people have a right to obtain.
"When freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God," Benedict said.

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Pardon for pope's butler who stole papers expected

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican has summoned journalists for a briefing on what Italian news reports say is an expected pardon for Pope Benedict XVI'S former butler, who stole the pontiff's personal papers and leaked them in a bid to expose the "evil and corruption" in the Catholic Church.
Paolo Gabriele was arrested May 23 after Vatican police found heaps of papal documents in his Vatican City apartment. He was convicted of aggravated theft by a Vatican tribunal on Oct. 6 and has been serving his 18-month sentence in the Vatican police barracks.
The Vatican has made no secret that the pope would pardon Gabriele. The only question was when. A pre-Christmas pardon was widely expected.
Veteran Vatican journalists reported the announcement would come Saturday, and the Vatican press office scheduled a last-minute briefing.

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Russia: Syrian chemical weapons under control

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's foreign minister says the Syrian government has consolidated its chemical weapons in one or two locations amid a rebel onslaught.
Sergey Lavrov says Russia, which has military advisers training Syria's military, has kept close watch over its chemical arsenal. He says the Syrian government has moved them from many arsenals to just "one or two centers" to properly safeguard them.
U.S. intelligence says the regime may be readying chemical weapons and could be desperate enough to use them. Both Israel and the U.S. have also expressed concerns they could fall into militant hands if the regime crumbles.
Lavrov also told reporters on a flight from an EU summit late Friday that countries in the region had asked Russia to convey an offer of safe passage to President Bashar Assad.

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