Hump Day Headlines - March 17, 2010

Every Wednesday you will find links and top-line summaries to current events around the globe.

Netanyahu defies U.S. over Jerusalem settlement [Reuters]

- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday rejected any curbs on Jewish settlement in and around Jerusalem, defying Washington in Israel’s deepening crisis with U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration. The United States condemned Israel’s plan to build 1,600 new homes for Jews in Ramat Shlomo, a religious settlement within the Israeli-designated borders of Jerusalem
- Israel’s announcement of the project during a visit last week by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden embarrassed the White House. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in unusually blunt remarks, called it an insult. The Palestinians, who had just agreed to begin indirect peace talks under U.S. mediation, have said they will not go ahead unless the plan is scrapped
- Netanyahu, who heads a coalition that includes pro-settler parties, including his own, said there was nearly total consensus in Israel that annexed areas of Jerusalem would be part of the Jewish state in any future peace deal. The Israeli prime minister imposed a 10-month moratorium on new housing starts in West Bank settlements in November, but excluded Jerusalem

Slim a maverick tycoon in Mexico’s business elite [Reuters]

- Slim, whose Telmex and America Movil companies dominate Mexico’s telephone industry and have helped him build a $53.5 billion fortune, was named the world’s wealthiest tycoon by the business magazine Forbes, last week. Slim, 70, personifies the yawning gap between Mexico’s small wealthy class and its millions of impoverished residents
- His companies have grown over decades to employ 270,000 people, including 35,000 jobs created last year as the economy battled the worst recession since the 1930s. Slim’s business empire includes some of Mexico’s best-known department stores, hotels, restaurants, oil drilling, building firms and the Inbursa bank
- Also on the Forbes list of billionaires was Ricardo Salinas, who built his fortune selling furniture and appliances to low-income Mexicans; German Larrea Mota, owner of copper miner Grupo Mexico; Televisa broadcasting tycoon Emilio Azcarraga; supermarket operator Jeronimo Arango and banker Roberto Hernandez. The country’s No. 1 drug lord fugitive, Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, is also on the list

Apple’s Spat With Google Is Getting Personal [New York Times]

- Jobs, Schmidt and their companies are engaged in a gritty battle over the future and shape of mobile computing and cellphones. In the last six months, Apple and Google have jousted over acquisitions, patents, directors, advisers and iPhone applications. Mr. Jobs and Mr. Schmidt have taken shots at each other’s companies in the media and in private exchanges with employees
- Apple believes that devices like smartphones and tablets should have tightly controlled, proprietary standards. Google, wants smartphones to have open, nonproprietary platforms so users can freely roam the Web for apps that work on many devices. Google has long feared that rivals could block access to its services on devices like smartphones, which could soon eclipse computers as the primary gateway to the Web
- At the heart of their dispute is a sense of betrayal: Mr. Jobs believes that Google violated the alliance between the companies by producing cellphones that physically, technologically and spiritually resembled the iPhone. In short, he feels that his former friends at Google picked his pocket

U.S. transfers prison, 2,900 ex-insurgents to Iraq [Reuters]

- The U.S. military handed over a $107 million prison and nearly 3,000 inmates to the Iraqi government on Monday as it prepares to leave Iraq seven years after ousting Saddam Hussein. The formal transfer of the detention center at Camp Taji, a sprawling U.S. base north of Baghdad, is part of a plan to unwind a U.S. detention program in Iraq that cost $500 million a year at its peak
- U.S. forces had taken into custody about 90,000 people since the 2003 invasion. By August, there will only be about 100 in U.S. custody. The largest, Camp Bucca in the southern desert near Kuwait, was shut down last September
- The prison occupies just 1 square km (0.4 square mile) of the 99-sq-km (38-sq-mile) base and the U.S. military retains control of most of the base. Washington plans to more than halve U.S. forces from the current 96,000 to about 50,000 by August 31, and pull almost all troops out by the end of 2011

Panic in Georgia After a Mock News Broadcast [New York Times]

- Some people placed emergency calls reporting heart attacks, others rushed in a panic to buy bread and residents of one border village staggered from their homes and dashed for safety — all after a television station in Georgia broadcast a mock newscast on Saturday night that pretended to report on a Russian invasion of the country
-The anchor announced that sporadic fighting had begun on the streets of Tbilisi, the capital, that Russian bombers were airborne and heading for Georgia, that troops were skirmishing to the west and that a tank battalion was reported to be on the move. The broadcast showed tanks rumbling down a road, billowing exhaust, along with jerky images of a fighter jet racing out of the sky and dropping bombs
- The television station clearly identified the program as fictitious before the broadcast began. But viewers who tuned in later would have had to rely on clues. The fighting in the video was taking place in the summer, for example, not in March. Lines formed at gas stations in Georgia and cellphone service crashed under the weight of panicky calls, the authorities said. The panic lasted about 15 minutes

Bloodshed blights Acapulco resort [BBC]

- Thirteen people have been killed in an outbreak of drug-related violence in the southern Mexican beach resort of Acapulco, officials have said. Five of the dead were police officers whose patrol was machine gunned. Eight other bullet-riddled bodies were discovered in different areas around the city – four had been beheaded
- Acapulco is one of Mexico’s biggest tourist resorts, but in recent years it has been the scene of bloody turf wars between rival drug cartels. In June, 18 people were killed in a shootout between drug gangs and soldiers in the city, which is home to about 600,000 people
- The Pacific states of Guerrero and neighbouring Michoacan are largely under the control of the powerful “La Familia” cartel. The latest bloodshed could not have come at a worse time: it is a holiday weekend in Mexico and the start of the spring break, which brings a surge of American visitors

Suicide bomber in rickshaw hits Pakistan checkpoint [BBC]

- At least 10 people have been killed by a suicide bomber in a rickshaw at a security checkpoint in north-west Pakistan, police say. At least 37 people were wounded by the explosion near Mingora, the main city in Swat Valley. It comes a day after twin suicide attacks in the eastern city of Lahore killed 54 people and injured about 100
- The latest attacks raise fears that militants may now have gone on the offensive after a relative lull in violence in the region
- The Pakistani army launched a major offensive in Swat last year after peace agreements with local militants collapsed. The area has been largely peaceful since then

Mobile application sales to reach ‘$17.5bn by 2012′ [BBC]

- The global appetite for mobile applications will explode over the next two years, new research shows. A study done for Getjar, the world’s second biggest app store, said the market will grow to $17.5bn in the next two years
- The study claimed downloads would climb from 7bn last year to 50bn by 2012 – a 92% year-on-year increase. It found there had been a gold rush with the number of app stores rising from four before 2008 to 48 today. The study also suggests Apple’s domination of the market could be challenged
- Mr Laurs said the research found that feature phones should not be ignored in the rush to create apps for smartphones. “It is almost as if these phones don’t exist. We know smartphones are an extremely important phenomenon, but in terms of consumer mindshare and revenue share, feature phones represent 90% of the global market compared to 10% for smartphones and data cards.”

Thai protests fizzle, but political row deepens [Reuters]

- A mass anti-government rally in Thailand appears to be fizzling. Tens of thousands have returned to their farms. They drew nowhere near the promised million protesters. The premier rebuffed their demands for elections. But dismissing it as a failure could be a mistake
- Red-shirted protesters, vilified as a thuggish mob after their street insurrection in Bangkok nearly a year ago, has won some credibility as a non-violent political movement that is in the fray for the long haul, several independent analysts said. The “red shirts,” trying to force Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to call an early election, splattered gallons of their own blood outside his residence on Wednesday in a dramatic demonstration to show their “sacrifice for democracy.”
- But the public relations stunt, put them no closer to polls that must be held by the end of 2011. They are well placed to win any election anyway — Thaksin-affiliated parties have won every election the past decade — and that could herald deep change for Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy and its recent surge of investors

- Honda Recalls 410,000 Vehicles Over Brake Woes [New York Times]
- Testing Obama, at Home and Abroad [New York Times]
- Tiger Woods will Return for Masters [New York Times
- Italy arrests 19 accused of helping mafia boss [Reuters]
- Sarkozy faces heavy loss in French regional poll [Reuters]
- China’s Wen pushes back against yuan rise calls [Reuters]
- Could Lehman be Ernst & Young’s Enron? [Reuters]
- Pacquiao’s Focus Turns From Boxing to Politics [New York Times]

Apple CEO Steve Jobs, left, and Google CEO Eric Schmidt, right, smile as they introduce the iPhone during Jobs’ keynote address at MacWorld Conference & Expo in San Francisco, Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2007. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)