EU leaders win breakthrough on budget deal

BRUSSELS (AP) ? European Union leaders reached an outline deal Friday on the 27-country bloc's 960 billion euro ($1.3 trillion) seven-year budget, overcoming a British-French dispute to sign off on the agreement.

British Prime Minister David Cameron had held out for the same financial conditions already promised him months ago, overshadowing a summit meant to focus on the continent's youth unemployment problems.

However, in the end, all 27 nations backed the budget deal. EU President Herman Van Rompuy said "it is a quite clear 'yes'," when it came to unanimous backing of the 2014-2020 spending plan.

Beyond the seven-year spending plan, which still needs full parliamentary approval, the EU nations also agreed on the shape of future bank bailouts, injecting a sense of fresh credibility into the efforts of the leaders to control the region's economic problems.

But the budget deal also highlighted deep divisions among European countries over whether to spend or cut their way out of crisis. The UK is seeking reassurances that it won't have to contribute too much at a time of belt-squeezing across the continent.

The multi-annual budget, which includes the first cut to EU spending in its history, determines what the bloc can spend on common infrastructure like railway or road projects, farming subsidies and aid to poor countries. It's separate from national budgets ? and much smaller ? but a source of difficult and passionate debate.

The decision came after some protracted brinkmanship following the British objections to an outline reached early Thursday. Cameron surprised many by insisting that the EU stick to parts of an earlier agreement reached in February.

Due to a provision on agricultural funding, the country could have lost some of its previously negotiated repayment from the budget, costing it about an annual 200 to 300 million euros, a diplomat from a major EU country said.

The issue left London up against Paris, which would have to pay for the bulk of the shortfall otherwise, the diplomat said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't allowed to discuss the closed-door talks publicly.

In the end, Van Rompuy said the British concerns were taken on board, since "actually nothing has changed" on the question of Britain's contribution since the February agreement.

French President Francois Hollande said he signed off on the deal and praised the European Parliament for winning more wiggle room on the budget.

The summit was initially meant to focus on finding ways to get more young people employed, and calmly taking stock of EU efforts to stabilize the world's biggest economic bloc now that its deep debt troubles have subsided.

Crucially, the EU budget also includes money for the employment measures that the bloc's leaders addressed at the two-day summit which finishes Friday afternoon. No budget agreement would mean no money for those projects.

Unemployment is at a record high of 11 percent for the EU and 12.2 percent for the 17 member countries that use the euro. It is far worse for the young: Latest figures show almost one in four people aged under 25 in the EU are unemployed. In Greece and Spain, that rate has it hit more than 50 percent.

After the late-night meetings, Hollande said that 6 billion euros for youth jobs will be speeded up and spent over 2014-2015 instead of over 7 years.

In addition he said that there will be two to three times that amount in "European credits" for employment schemes.

Germany argues that governments should focus on reforms instead of new funding, to get growth going again and create more jobs.

Thursday's deal on the budget came hours after EU finance ministers reached a landmark deal determining that banks' shareholders, creditors and holders of large deposits will have to bear the brunt of future bank failures, so that taxpayers don't have to.

The joint rules on how to restructure or wind down banks are a key step toward establishing a so-called banking union for Europe, aimed at restoring stability after a tumultuous few years that have dragged down the global economy.

___

Angela Charlton and Sylvain Plazy in Brussels and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

___

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/eu-leaders-win-breakthrough-budget-deal-022645718.html

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Could Russia take in 'idealist' Snowden?

Former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who Russian officials say is spending his sixth day hiding somewhere in Moscow's cavernous Sheremetyevo airport, has still not been heard from or even spotted by journalists who've been eagerly combing the transit zone for a glimpse of him.

But his presence has not passed unnoticed in Moscow political circles, where a growing number of voices are suggesting that he should be brought in from the cold and offered asylum in Russia.

While a skeptic may perceive a cynical streak behind the unfolding public discussion ? a desire to exploit Mr. Snowden's situation for propaganda points against the US ? it might also be argued that some of the Western concepts being introduced into mainstream Russia political discourse, pretty much for the first time, may be hard to put back in the box later.

RECOMMENDED: Do you know anything about Russia? A quiz.

One prominent theme is the jarring notion that the old cold war paradigm ? the US-led "free world" versus the Soviet "evil empire" ? is being been stood on its head, and the US now looks like a ponderous, bureaucratic police state, while modern Russia has morphed into a beacon of hope for Western freedom-seekers.

"[Julian] Assange, [Bradley] Manning and Snowden are not spies who sold classified information for money. They acted on their beliefs. They are new dissidents, fighters against the system," the head of the State Duma's international affairs committee, Alexei Pushkov, tweeted Wednesday.

Mr. Pushkov, who excels at skewering Western "double standards," has maintained a steady stream of similar comments on his Twitter feed in recent days.

"The idealist Snowden was apparently convinced it would all turn out like a Hollywood movie: he will expose abuses and democracy will prevail. But life, and the US, are tougher," he tweeted Friday.

A somewhat different tack was taken by the head of the Kremlin's in-house human rights commission, Mikhail Fedotov, who told journalists that Snowden "deserves protection" and should file a request for refuge in Russia.

"If Mr. Snowden files such a request, then it can be considered by the president," Fedotov told the independent Interfax agency on Thursday.

"This situation is utterly clear to me from the point of view of human rights protection: a person, disclosing secrets concealed by special services, if these secrets are a threat to the society, a threat to millions people ? which refers to the total surveillance of the Internet ? such a person does deserve political asylum in this or that country," Fedotov said.

The official line, expressed by President Vladimir Putin, is that Russia will not hand Snowden over to the US but that he should move on, the sooner the better.

Before he goes, however, Russia's Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, has struck a special committee and invited him in to testify about the impact of NSA spying on Russian citizens.

Sen. Ruslan Gattarov, head of the Federation Council's working group to investigate Snowden's claims, says his main concern is not to investigate the NSA.

He insists the committee's key interest is to explore the alleged abuse-of-trust by giant Internet companies ? such as Google, Yahoo, and Facebook, and others with huge slices of the Russian market ? which Snowden's revelations suggest have handed over user data to the NSA.

"We don't want to get involved in secret service conspiracies. Whatever the NSA was doing is not particularly our concern," Mr. Gattarov says.

"We want to know how it happens that big global Internet companies, which operate in Russia, too, find it possible to leak user data to a third party. The public has been assured by these companies that our personal correspondence, our bank accounts, our Internet habits are all perfectly secure. But what we're learning from Mr. Snowden's exposures strongly suggest otherwise."

"So, we want to talk with him. As soon as he settles his status, we invite him to come to the Federation Council and discuss with us any evidence that is relevant to this probe," he adds.

Sergei Markov, a frequent adviser to President Putin, says the growing public debate over what to do about Snowden really is something new, and it puts the Kremlin in a difficult spot.

"Russia really would prefer if Snowden went somewhere else, but it is quite possible that we'd take him in if he asked for asylum here. It would create difficulties with the US, but Russia would lose a lot of credibility if it were to turn him down," Mr. Markov says.

"Of course, Snowden probably doesn't want refuge in Russia. He belongs to international civil society, the so-called 'warriors of freedom,' who probably dislike Russia as much as they do the US. He'd probably see Russian asylum as the total failure of his mission. But in Russian society, there is a real, very healthy discussion going on about this. People are reexamining their beliefs. For example, human rights advocates who normally just criticize the Kremlin are being forced to answer the question: Are you more pro-American, or more pro-human rights?" he says.

"If you're more pro-human rights, it means you should support Snowden even if it means offending the US."

RECOMMENDED: Do you know anything about Russia? A quiz.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russia-debates-letting-snowden-cold-160350294.html

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I'm David McRaney, and This Is How I Work

We talk a lot about perception, reasoning, and bias here at Lifehacker, so it makes sense that David McRaney is one of our favorite writers. (We've covered his thoughts on everything from wine to internet fights.) At his blog You Are Not So Smart?and in the book of the same title?David focuses on why humans are so "unaware of how unaware we are." His newest book, You Are Now Less Dumb, expands on these ideas of self-delusion and offers ways to overcome the brain's natural tendencies. We caught up with David to talk about his writing habits, favorite gadgets, secret talents, and more.

Location: About an hour-and-a-half away from New Orleans in a college town in Mississippi called Hattiesburg.
Current gig: Author of You Are Now Less Dumb, out July 30, published by Gotham. Think of it as a self-hurt book with a heart of gold. Writer and producer of things that appear at YouAreNotSoSmart.com. Digital media director, one of several, with Raycom Media. Current mobile device: iPhone 5
Current computer: 27-inch iMac; 15-inch Macbook Pro
One word that best describes how you work: Modularly

What apps/software/tools can't you live without?

I write everything in Google Drive in Chrome, including this sentence, and then move it into other programs like Scrivener and Word when it comes time for for those things to be polished. I love the stripped-down interface and the security of knowing it's saved in the cloud and will probably be accessible for as long as Google supports it.

This is probably not the best way to go about doing things, but both of my books passed through a chain of programs chapter by chapter: Drive to Scrivener to Word to Dropbox. Drive for the bulk of the writing, Scrivener to shape it into a book, and Word for coordinating with an editor through the track changes feature. I offloaded a new copy of the manuscript to Dropbox every night after each writing session too, just in case. Dropbox saved me when a tornado destroyed my house and neighborhood during the final days of editing the new book. I was able to set up a laptop the next morning, download it, and finish the manuscript while rain poured into my office across a tree that had skewered my roof. (Pictured at left.)

I toss dozens of things into Evernote every day?comments, quotes, full articles, instructions, urls?everything. I love being able to search it later when I remember reading something a while back that would go great with something recently discovered. I also have a ScanSnap S1300i that I use to scan into Evernote just about every flat thing that enters my house.

I capture interviews over Skype with Audio Hijack Pro and use Levelator, Audacity, and Garage Band to make them sound nice.

Off screen, my most valuable tool is access to a university library system. I routinely depend on it to print out heaps of studies which I go through with my other favorite offline tool, a Bic four-color pen.

I use Prezi to create my lecture presentations. It?s actually fun to use, and audiences love it.

And, of course, Wordpress has changed my life.

What's your workspace like?

It depends on what phase I?m in during a writing project. When I?m still trying to figure out what I?m going to do next or I?m arranging things very early on, I like to stay out of my office. I use a laptop and a legal pad on my deck or at a bar or a coffee shop in the beginning since distractions don?t matter to me at that point. In that phase I also prefer reading books on the Kindle app on an iPad so I can highlight text and get back to it later from my desktop. For most other research I print out the original documents, like studies and essays and letters, and read those at lunch or in the afternoons on a couch, circling things that I find interesting and making notes in red ink right in the margins.

Pictured above: David's workspace.

Eventually, I?ll take all my notes, research, highlights, and everything to my home office, a spare bedroom, where I?ll basically move in and hunker down. I like feeling secluded and surrounded by the work. I also have an acoustic bass and an acoustic guitar attached to the walls. I?ll take one down and play it if I can?t seem to get started. After a few minutes of that, I?m usually ready to write. There is a couch and television behind me so I can play video games when I feel like I?ve lost my flow. I set a timer for one hour, start playing a game, and then go back to the computer when it goes off.

Next to my desk I have a nice, big table with lots and lots of space all around me to stack papers and books and cups and plates. The walls in there are soundproofed, and for podcasting and voiceover work I use a Shure SM7B microphone on a boom arm plugged into a Behringer XENYX 1202FX which is piped into my computer via a Behringer UCA202 audio interface.

What's your best time-saving trick?

My voicemail message tells people that I don?t check voicemail and asks them to please email me instead. I haven?t checked voicemail for more than five years now. Also, when I?m on-task and run across things online that seem interesting but aren?t related to what I am doing, I send those things to Pocket. Every Saturday morning I sit and read all the things I?ve saved that week, and if those things end up blowing my mind or seem like material for future projects, I send them to Evernote to be saved in the appropriate research folder.

What's your favorite to-do list manager?

I?ve tried lots of things over the years, but for most things that must be done soon I use a reporter?s notebook or a tiny yellow legal pad. For appointments, I use Google Calendar as the backend for my Apple calendar. For deadlines I use Countdown+. I sometimes use Siri to remind to do things, but I?m pretty bad about letting reminder apps become buckets for storing things I?ll never get around to doing. I also have a waterproof notepad and pencil stuck to my shower?s wall. I rip those pages off when it gets full and put them on my desk.

Besides your phone and computer, what gadget can't you live without?

I love my Gerber Shortcut, which I keep on my keychain, and my Gerber Descent II pocket knife. (The knife is discontinued, but they have a new version that is still available.) For recording interviews away from a computer, you can?t beat the Zoom H4N.

What everyday thing are you better at than anyone else?

I?m pretty sure I make the best alfredo sauce in North America. Nutmeg, my friends, the secret is nutmeg.

What do you listen to while you work?

I have a Spotify playlist just for writing and another one for editing. I try to stick to music that either has no lyrics or lyrics in a language I can?t understand.

What are you currently reading?

I?m rereading Carl Zimmer?s Parasite Rex and just started Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff.

Are you more of an introvert or an extrovert?

I?m great at faking extroversion, but I?m absolutely excellent at slinking away into long stretches of hermitage.

Pictured above: Stacks of research for David's newest book.

What's your sleep routine like?

I try to go to sleep by midnight, because but no matter when I go bed or what chemicals I put into my body, I will wake up without an alarm clock at 6:30 AM every day. It?s a terrible superpower.

Fill in the blank: I'd love to see _______ answer these same questions.

Jon Ronson, David Eagleman, and Richard Wiseman.

What's the best advice you've ever received?

I don?t think he meant it as advice on how to live your life, but I?ve used it as such. When I was a teenager, I worked for my father who was an electrical contractor. He ran a crew of men who dug a lot of deep holes and long trenches and then put cables and pipes into those holes and trenches. I wanted to prove to him that I could earn a paycheck and work hard, so I started out wildly attacking the ground with my shovel, leaping on the back of the blade, taking giant bites of earth and so on. He saw me working like that one day and took the shovel from me. He said, ?Dig smarter, not harder.? He then showed me how to go slow and steady and to take a manageable amount of dirt from the ground with each pass. If I had kept using my method, it would have looked more impressive to my peers if they had happened to see me working, but I would have tired out long before the job was finished.

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

Read as much as you can, and when you come across a sentence or a paragraph that stuns you for whatever reason, write it down. Save those words. Go back to them when you feel lost. Read them out loud to someone you love. Commit them to memory if you can. Make them a part of you. Here?s one of my favorites from my collection:

"The perception of truth evolves through small revelations. Old truths decay in the same way. The revelations are rarely thunderous. They are mites you can barely hear, working behind the wood. They are corns of wheat, bits of string. They piggyback our dreams, or wait in the dirt until the day we hit hit face-first. We accrete truth like silt. It hones us like wind over sandstone." -Michael Perry from Off Main Street

The How I Work series asks heroes, experts, and flat-out productive people to share their shortcuts, workspaces, routines, and more. Every Wednesday we'll feature a new guest and the gadgets, apps, tips, and tricks that keep them going. Have someone you want to see featured, or questions you think we should ask? Email Tessa.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/zKm3UiC0ePc/im-david-mcraney-and-this-is-how-i-work-584512834

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Twitter wants to make a "DVR mode" for live TV events, offer delayed Twitter streams

Social media is very much about keeping up with what's happening right now -- but not everybody consumes live media simultaneously. What happens when you watch a time-shifted sporting event four hours late, but still want to see what your peers had to say in the heat of the moment? Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has an idea: social media DVR. Speaking at a moderated panel at at the Center for Technology Innovation, Costolo envisioned a system that would allow users to jump back in time and look at a snapshot of the social network at a specific moment.

"It would be nice to see things like a graphic of spikes in the conversation," he said. "And be able to scroll back to that time and see what happened at that particular moment." The CEO continued to suggest that such a feature could be designed around planned events, describing it as "Twitter in a DVR mode." Although it was suggested that these features are in testing, Costolo stopped short of saying if they were actually something users could expect to see soon. Naturally, we reached out to the company for further comment, but haven't heard back just yet. Still, it's at least clear that the company hasn't abandoned its television-based ambitions.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD

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Source: TechCrunch

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/RbU1E5uAo7E/

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Qatar to change premier, foreign minister under new emir

By Regan Doherty

DOHA (Reuters) - Qatar's prime minister, for two decades the driving force behind the Gulf country's rise to global prominence, will quit his posts of premier and foreign minister in an imminent cabinet reshuffle, al Jazeera reported on Wednesday.

Diplomats said earlier this month that Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, popularly known as HBJ, was likely to step down after Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani handed power to his son - a move announced on Tuesday.

Qatari-owned al Jazeera said the current minister of state for interior affairs, Sheikh Abdullah bin Naser al-Thani, had been chosen as the next prime minister.

It also named Khalid bin Atiyah, the current state minister for foreign affairs and Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim's close lieutenant, as the new foreign minister.

In Sheikh Hamad's time as foreign minister, Qatar began hosting the largest U.S. air base in the Middle East but also cozied up to America's foes Iran, Syria and Hamas in pursuit of leverage. The Afghan Taliban opened an office in Doha last week.

Named prime minister in 2007, he played a personal role in facilitating Qatar's numerous efforts to resolve violent tensions, brokering talks in conflicts ranging from Lebanon to Yemen and from Darfur to the Palestinian territories.

What perhaps brought Sheikh Hamad most fame was his country's public and robust support of the Arab Spring revolts.

Qatar lent significant support to rebels fighting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi by supplying them with weapons and fuel.

The state has also been Egypt's top financial backer, signaling an intention to play a leading role in rebuilding the economy of the most populous Arab country after its 2011 uprising.

Qatar has been an early and ardent supporter of Syrian rebels fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad from power.

Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani was named emir following the abdication of his father on Tuesday in a transition rare in Gulf Arab countries, where heads of state normally rule for life.

Qatar is the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas and key financier of Arab Spring uprisings.

There was no reference to Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim during Tuesday's ceremonies and he was not seen in television coverage of the thousands who came to pledge allegiance to the new ruler.

Sheikh Tamim was due to deliver his first address to Qatari citizens on Wednesday evening at 11:00 a.m. EDT.

(Reporting by Sami Aboudi and Yara Bayoumy, Editing by William Maclean and Mike Collett-White)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/qatar-change-premier-foreign-minister-under-emir-125607917.html

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Apple allegedly looking into MacBook Air WiFi issue, replacing machines

Over the last few days we've been hearing from several of our readers about WiFi instability on new Haswell-equipped MacBook Airs, which also happens to be Apple's first computer with 802.11ac. Despite those rare reports, in our recent review it impressed us with solid performance and incredible battery life. Today 9to5Mac learned that Apple is supposedly aware of the issue and working on a fix, while some customers have also reported getting their systems replaced. In the meantime, the company has reportedly directed its Genius Bar employees to "capture" machines experiencing the problem -- i.e. return them to Cupertino for testing. We've contacted the company for comment and will keep you posted if there's any official response.

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