Amazon to Challenge iPad

Amazon.com Inc. is expected to unveil Wednesday the latest—and possibly biggest—challenger to Apple Inc.'s dominant iPad tablet.

Few specifics are known about the tablet, and Amazon hasn't publicly acknowledged its existence, even in the invitation for an event to be held Wednesday. However, a tablet from the Seattle-based company is seen posing a threat to the iPad's dominance due to Amazon's strong media offerings, history of aggressive pricing and its ability to market the device on its popular website.

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Among the features expected: touch-screen technology; a customized version of Google Inc.'s Android operating system; and access to Amazon's app store, streaming movies and TV shows. Some observers have speculated that the device could be priced below $300—a new iPad is $499 —and could include Amazon Prime, the company's $79-per-year shipping and media service.

An Amazon spokeswoman didn't respond to a request for comment.

In a page lifted from Apple's playbook, Amazon distributed cryptic invitations—containing nothing more than the company's name, an address, a date and time—to a media event in New York. The Wall Street Journal reported in July that Amazon was working on tablet that would run on Google's Android platform, according to people familiar with the device. Unlike the iPad, it won't have a camera, one of those people said.

Amazon already has established it can successfully market a piece of hardware. As Apple's iPad sets the bar for tablets, Amazon's Kindle is the de facto standard for dedicated e-readers. Citigroup has estimated the Kindle will contribute about 10% of Amazon's total revenue by next year, or more than $6 billion, even as the company lowers prices on the machine.

As for whether a new tablet could eat into Kindle sales, Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos has touted the compatibility of the Kindle and fuller-featured tablet devices in the past, saying many shoppers buy both. Amazon will also likely benefit from the millions of people who visit its website, which could serve as built-in promotion. "Amazon has an advantage that other tablet manufacturers don't in that millions of people already visit its site on a regular basis," said Ken Sena, an analyst who covers Amazon for Evercore Partners. He added that those consumers will be regularly exposed to advertisements for the device.

Ahead of Amazon's splashy launch for its new tablet, several publishers and networks have signed on to provide content for the new gadget. AllThingsD's Peter Kafka reports on digits.

"It certainly creates a competitor to the iPad," Mr. Sena said.

The iPad, credited with kicking off the consumer tablet-computer market, has won plaudits for its ease of use, elegant design and selection of over 90,000 apps that transform it into everything from a video player to a DJ turntable.

The iPad already has left several high-tech bodies in its wake. Research In Motion Ltd.'s PlayBook, Hewlett-Packard Co.'s TouchPad, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.'s Galaxy Tab and Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc.'s Xoom have all failed to attract mass audiences. Last month, just weeks after the tablet device had first gone on sale, H-P wound down its TouchPad project. Samsung, meanwhile, faces lawsuits around the world from Apple, which claims the Korean electronics giant copied the iPad's look and feel.

Apple has sold about 29 million iPads since the product went on sale early last year and had 68.3% of the tablet market in the second quarter, according to data tracker IDC.

Apple declined to comment for this story. The Cupertino, Calif.-based consumer-electronics giant has scheduled its own media event for next Tuesday, at which it is expected to unveil the latest version of the iPhone.

Amazon's new tablet will also have to compete with Barnes & Noble Inc.'s Nook, a low-cost e-reader that offers a color screen and Web surfing.

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Amazon's new tablet could threaten the iPad's dominance. CEO Jeff Bezos, above, seen with a Kindle in 2009.

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Tablets: Ultimate Buying Machines

Still, Amazon appears intent on replicating Apple's most appealing qualities. On Monday, the company augmented its media offerings by striking a partnership with News Corp.'s Fox unit that places the network's shows, such as "24," on the Prime streaming service.

The All Things D website, a sister publication to The Wall Street Journal, has reported that Amazon also has media partnerships to support the tablet with publishers Hearst Corp. and Condé Nast.

News Corp. owns All Things D as well as the Journal.

Amazon's longstanding relationships with consumers also means it has reams of sensitive information, including email addresses and credit-card data. That could make it easy for Amazon to market additional products for its tablet, as well as charge for them. "They have an awful lot of consumer credit cards already on file," says Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at research firm Gartner Inc. "I don't think we've seen anyone quite in this position to present a different alternative."

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204422404576597141076634146.html#ixzz1ZEppRPDD

Former NYC Mayor Koch Endorses Obama for Re-election Read more on Newsmax.com: Former NYC Mayor Koch Endorses Obama for Re-election Important: Do You

Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch’s opposition to President Barack Obama’s Mideast policy prompted him to endorse Republican Bob Turner in the special election in New York’s 9th Congressional District this month.

But now Koch is reversing course regarding the president, The Jewish Daily Forward reports.

In an email to supporters on Monday, Koch praised Obama’s pro-Israel speech at the United Nations last week.


In addition, “The president should be praised for intervening with the Egyptian army to save the Israeli diplomatic personnel from physical assault and providing the Israeli military with bunker buster bombs, advanced military technology and providing military intelligence cooperation far exceeding his predecessors,” Koch wrote. “I’m now on board the Obama Reelection Express.”


Koch’s support for Turner received much of the credit for the Republican victory in claiming the seat of disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner in a traditionally Democratic district.

Read more on Newsmax.com: Former NYC Mayor Koch Endorses Obama for Re-election
Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!

A Disaster in the Making

For purposes of clarification, let us spell out the typical justifications for creation of a state. The justification for Israel, for example, was fourfold: Israel was the historic homeland of the Jews from which they had been expelled, but had never stopped attempting to return; Jews required a homeland to prevent the consistent attempts to destroy their existence; Jews have a distinct culture, history, language and religion; Jews were a toehold for civilization in a brutally backward part of the world.

The so-called Palestinians fulfill none of these requirements. There was no historic Palestinian homeland because there was never a historic Palestine governed by Arabs. In fact, even the Palestinians seem unclear on whether Jordan (which is 70% “Palestinian”) is part of historic Palestine. Palestinians did not attempt to rise up against Jordanian or Egyptian rule between 1948 and 1967; instead, they focused on destroying Israel. Nobody has attempted to wipe the Palestinian Arabs from the face of the earth – they flourish in mass numbers across Europe and the Middle East, and now threaten to take control of Jordan. Palestinians are not a distinct people; their leaders hail largely from Jordan or Egypt.

Its population defined itself by recently electing Hamas to govern Gaza. Even its “moderate” faction, Fatah, was an armed wing of the terrorist PLO. Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah’s current leader, has honored planners of the murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Every governing body the Palestinians have ever had is a rehashed terrorist group – and its population appears to like it that way.

In fact, establishment of an independent Palestinian state would be profoundly immoral, being, as it would, a huge base for all efforts to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth, once and for all. The Arab states would funnel weapons and armaments into the new Palestinian state. As “moderate” PLO representative Faisal Husseini said in May 2001, “There is a difference between the strategic goal of the Palestinian people, which is not willing to give up even one grain of Palestinian soil, and the political [tactical] effort that has to do with the [present] balance of power and with the nature of the present international system. The latter is a different effort than the former. We may lose or win [tactically] but our eyes will continue to aspire to the strategic goal, namely, to Palestine from the river to the sea.”

The Palestinian terror state would be another anti-American terror state in the Middle East. It would provide a training and resource outlet for terrorists who seek to harm America. If the Palestinian areas were famous for their chief export being terrorism before, a Palestine would up the ante, turning the territory into a veritable mini-Iran.

Sadly, a Palestinian state would not even be good for the Palestinians. That is because the Palestinian terrorists who control the area are profoundly anti-women’s rights, anti-gay rights, and anti-freedom of religion. It would be heaven for Islamists.

Finally, what of the claim that an independent Palestinian state would quiet agitation about the Mideast “conflict”? Not likely. Muslims around the globe are just as incensed by the existence of Tel Aviv as the existence of Efrat. And even were Israel to magically disappear overnight, their grievances against the West would not end, but escalate. Virtually every anti-American message ever delivered by Islamists includes a bevy of rationales for their hatred, including, but not limited to, America’s decadent lifestyle, system of economics, interest in oil, Christianity, in addition to tolerance for Jews worldwide.

There is no peace in which the lion lies down with the lamb. There is only security. Whatever preserves Israel’s security benefits the West; whatever undermines it makes the West’s influence over the region less and less relevant. That’s how to think about Palestinian statehood.

Egypt uncovers Libyan SA-24 anti-air missiles and sea mines bound for Gaza

how muchmore danger can israel be in?

SA-24 infrared missile from Libya to Gaza

Helped by highly sophisticated contraband weapons smuggled out of Libya, Iran and Hizballah are getting the Palestinian Hamas equipped for another round of hostilities with Israel. debkafile's military sources report that Sunday, Sept. 25, Egyptian security forces, acting on information from a Western intelligence source, homed in near Ismailia on a large half-empty buried cache of advanced SA-24 anti-air infrared missiles (a version of the US Stinger) stored there en route from Libya to Gaza.
The information came too late to block delivery; most of the crates were found empty of their contents of missiles and other military equipment which must already be on their way to Sinai or Gaza. Some of the empty containers were found to have contained Russian-made MDM-3 sea mines, of the type Muammar Qaddafi scattered around Libyan ports in May to keep NATO vessels at bay.

Our North African sources report that many of Qaddafi's weapons stores were seized by the rebels and their contents sold by some of the officers to the highest bidders.
Tripoli today is under the sway of several rival militias belonging to the rebel National Transitional Council. An oversight committee of American, British, French and Italian delegates is trying to track down the advanced weaponry which the rebels seized during the NATO-led advance into the capital on Aug. 21. They have been questioning the Libyan rebel officers placed in charge of the arms stores and Libyan weapons dealers for information.

The CIA agents on the committee are aware that Hizballah and Hamas purchasing missions armed with Iranian petrodollars established a presence some months ago in Benghazi, seat of the NTC which has not yet moved to Tripoli. Those agents elude discovery in the mayhem prevailing in rebel ranks and may be hiding in one of the rebel commands operating outside Benghazi.
But the NATO commission has managed to find out roughly what happens to the smuggled arms after they are spirited out of Tripoli, debkafile's counter-terror sources report. Some are bound for southern Libya and Niger, where Qaddafi loyalists holed up in the Sahel desert on the fringes of the Sahara take delivery: The second destination is Algeria for Al Qaeda in the Maghreb; and the third is the Gaza Strip through Egypt and Sinai.

The introduction of sophisticated anti-air infrared missiles and sea mines into areas abutting on Israel's land and sea borders has given its army chiefs and strategists a serious headache. The SA-24s would give the Hamas an anti-air capability on a par with that of the Hizballah and consists three elements:
- The SA-24s which are portable air defense missiles with a range of 5.2 kilometers, an operational ceiling of 3.5 kilometers and Mach 2.3 speed.

Depending mainly on visual scanning, they can also be fired at night and are effective against fighter planes, armored helicopters, drones and diverse surface-to surface missiles, including cruise missiles.
- SA-14 (Strela-3) has a small and very precise solid propellant guided missile as well as an improved system for overcoming countermeasures. Its range is 4.5 kilometers and operational ceiling 3 kilometers.

- The SA-7 (Strela-2) has a 3.6 kilometer range, operational ceiling from 1.5 to 15 meters and Mach 1.75.

Hamas is therefore armed with weapons capable of attacking high-, medium- and low-flying objects, including planes, helicopters and drones over and outside the Gaza Strip in southwest Israel including the port towns of Ashdod and Ashkelon.
Sea mines if Hamas can sow them in eastern Mediterranean waters would severely impair the Israeli and Egyptian navies' freedom of navigation. There is the additional danger of mines drifting ashore.
Our military sources report that Iran, Hizballah and Hamas employ experts with specialist knowledge of deep Mediterranean currents. They use them for Iranian freighters to skirt Israel's naval blockade against the Gaza Strip and throw arms consignments overboard for Hizballah and Hamas to be carried ashore by currents.

Both radical terrorist groups are now in possession of a stock of Libyan sea mines which can be used with the help of these experts for striking precise locations on the Israeli coast..

Drive-by rock attacks – a new twist on Palestinian highway terror

Friday, Sept. 23, the day Mahmoud Abbas applied for UN recognition of a Palestinian state, an Israeli called Asher Palmer, 25, and his one-year old son Jonathan were killed by a novel Palestinian method of murder while driving home on the Hebron road. This is how it works: Instead of standing around for a passing Israeli car, throwing rocks and maybe getting caught, Palestinian terrorists have devised the drive-by rock-throwing method. Two or three Palestinians sit in a car holding a large rock ready. They hurl it at the windscreen of an oncoming Israeli car and drive off at speed.
The lethal rock they tossed at the Asher Palmer's car was roughly the size of a football.
In that incident, the Israeli police, in their zeal to keep the situation under control at the behest of their superiors on a particularly inflammable day, were caught lying. They claimed the two deaths were caused by a road accident because the army had reported no cases of stone-throwing on that particular stretch of road. This is explained, say debkafile's counterterrorism sources, by the Palestinian's new method: Since they never have to leave their vehicle, they can quit the murder scene at top speed before the alarm is given without leaving a trace.
In subsequent bulletins, the police elaborated on the lie: They claimed the Palmers' car had accidentally overturned and landed on a rock which smashed the windscreen and hit the driver.
Even after it was apparent that the two Israelis were murdered by Palestinian terrorists, the police carried on the charade. Sunday, Sept. 25, they applied to the Jerusalem magistrate's court for permission to carry out a post mortem on the bodies. But here, they were finally brought up short: Judge Alexander Ron decided to respect the family's wishes and refused the police application.
If as you say it was only a road accident and not a terrorist attack, why do you need an autopsy? The judge asked. The bodies were released that day and the grieving family was allowed to bury them.

However, the Israeli police are left with a serious case to answer: They were caught lying to the public. Instead of doing their job, they acted to save the politicians from embarrassment and were therefore seriously out of line. It was the first time that Israeli officials had deliberately covered up a terrorist attack.
The Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich and police commissioner Yohanan Danino are under pressure for action against the officers responsible for deceiving the public. Someone should take the rap to make sure it never happens again. Police credibility is at stake.

U.K.: Up to 20,000 Muslim polygamous unions robbing welfare system blind

Even [1] Baroness Warsi has acknowledged that fear expressed as "cultural sensitivity" has prevented authorities from going after offenders and stopping the various ruses by which men bring in additional wives from overseas.

Islamic law allows a man up to four wives. But British law does not. It would be bad enough if Muslims in Britain were undertaking this illegal practice and showing such disrespect for the rule of British law on their own dime, but polygamy is in fact dependent on the welfare system, as this report demonstrates. How else would the "pizza delivery driver" below fund multiple wives and families?

Meanwhile, many British families who play by the rules struggle to afford to support one or two children with what is left after taxes.

Britain is funding its own collapse by subsidizing a supremacist demographic conquest by people with no intention of putting back into the system what they take out. This state of affairs is all the more outrageous in the midst of a spiraling, debt-driven global economic crisis.

"The truth about polygamy: A special investigation into how Muslim men can exploit the benefits system," by Sue Reid for the [2] Daily Mail, September 24:

Ghulam is a taxi driver who lives in Blackburn, a once-booming textile town in Lancashire. He has a terrace house near his local mosque (one of 53 in the area), a silver Nissan car and a very complex private life.

For he has so many children that he struggles to remember their names, and five wives from various countries, including Yemen, Egypt, Turkey and his own birthplace, Pakistan.

Ghulam’s latest bride is a shy 20-year-old called Hafeza. He brought her to Britain from Morocco, soon after his 45th birthday earlier this year. They married in an Islamic wedding ceremony called ‘the Nikah’ in her village, with Hafeza’s pleased parents among the guests.

Thirty miles across the Pennines in Yorkshire, pizza delivery driver Wasim, 27, has an equally complicated domestic life.

He lives in a part of Dewsbury called Savile Town, a network of 11 terrace streets dominated by one of the biggest mosques in Europe, where most residents are Asian with origins in Pakistan or India.

Wasim has three wives, the first of whom lives with him and their three teenage sons. His other two wives have separate houses in Savile Town, one down the road and another round the corner. He visits each two nights a week.

The women have had several of Wasim’s children and he hopes the youngest bride (aged 19) will soon present him with another baby.

I learned of Ghulam and Wasim this week while investigating a subject that is taboo in politically correct Britain. It is the huge rise of bigamy (having two wives) and polygamy (more than two) in our Muslim communities.

The issue was recently bravely highlighted by Baroness Flather, a crossbench life peer who was herself born in Lahore, now part of Pakistan.

She warned the Lords (and also wrote an article for the Mail on the subject) about how our shambolic benefits system is being exploited by men hailing from Pakistan and other Muslim nations who indulge in multiple marriages — with taxpayers forced to foot the bill.

As Baroness Flather explained: ‘The wives are regarded by the welfare system as single mothers, and are therefore entitled to a full range of lone parent payments.

'As a result, several “families” fathered by the same man can all claim benefits, as they are provided for by the welfare state, which treats them as if they were not related,’

Lady Flather also lamented the reluctance of politicians to address the issue: ‘It is certainly difficult to discuss this phenomenon of serial marriage and exploitation of the benefits system, with few people in Britain seeming to want to confront the disturbing truth.’

Two years ago, another peer, Baroness Warsi, born in Dewsbury to Pakistani parents, and now a Coalition Cabinet Minister, also voiced her concerns. She said cultural sensitivity was stopping politicians addressing the problem.

Yet this week I found those — from within the heart of the Asian communities — who were prepared to speak out.

Although the Government says there are only 1,000 such bigamous or polygamous unions in the UK, two experienced Lancashire social workers — one of Indian-English heritage and the other with Pakistani origins — told me that, although it’s difficult to be precise, in their estimation the figure is closer to 20,000.

The social workers said the multiple marriages are encouraged by a welfare system which allows a second, third or fourth wife to be treated as a single mother who gets a house and an array of other state payments for herself and her children.

Controversially, it means that a man can take a new spouse (from anywhere in the world), sire any number of children with her, and yet have no responsibility for this family’s upkeep or care.

To avoid breaking Britain’s matrimony laws, the men marry their extra ‘wives’ in an Islamic Nikah ceremony, either in their own homes or a mosque. [...]

While it has long been a cliche for men to complain that their wives and children take up most of their income, the reality for polygamous husbands is that the more babies he sires, the more money pours in for him and his wives.

As Tariq Ali, the 45-year-old co-founder of Project BME (Black Minority Ethnics), a charity based in Darwen, Lancashire, admits: ‘There are thousands of bigamous and polygamous marriages in the UK’s Pakistani community — the same community into which I was born.

'Every single man of my age who I bump into seems to have a third, fourth or fifth wife.

‘The issue is going unreported but in the Asian communities this is becoming a way of life. I think the number of polygamous relationships must be 20,000.

‘The men find second wives in the UK as well as any Muslim country abroad. The new favourite places to find women are Turkey and Morocco, because the men can drive there by car to meet them and bring them back.’ [...]

‘What’s more, they are virgins — which the men like. But it means British laws are being abused, and something should be done by the Government. A first step would be the registration of Nikah weddings in this country at least.’ This would prevent many bigamous marriages....

Qaddafi enlists new 12,000-strong army of Tuareg tribal fighters

Muammar Qaddafi and his sons have raised a new army of 12,000 soldiers - all fighters of loyal Tuareg tribes of the Sahara, debkafile’s military sources report.

Hundreds of kilometers to the north, Libyan rebel troops clashed with Qaddafi loyalists in his home town of Sirte after reportedly entering the town from the west. Although rebel ranks are seriously divided, they derived encouragement from NATO's decision to extend its naval and air campaign in Libya by another 90 days to help them dislodge Qaddafi's troops from the cities they are still holding.
Saturday, Sept. 24, his daughter Aisha said in an audio recording that her father was in high spirits and fighting alongside his supporters. Last week, our sources report, a Tuareg tribal council convened in Niger extended full protection to Qaddafi, his sons, his military chiefs and the still-loyal members of the ousted regime. Members of the rebel National Transitional Council were proclaimed enemies of the tribes.

Three days earlier, the NTC claimed the capture of the southern desert town of Sabha, even though they only reached its outskirts.
debkafile's military sources report that the nomadic Touareg roam freely through the Saharan regions which cover all of eastern Algeria, eastern Mali, western Niger, northern Burkina Faso and southern Libya, fiercely independent of all five governments. They are renowned as crack desert special operations fighters with extraordinary stamina, who can subsist on 100 grams of dried dates and a half liter of water for 24 hours while covering 100 kilometers on foot. They don't need to carry water because of their hereditary knowledge of the Sahara's hidden springs.
By recruiting them, Qaddafi has assured his forces and top officials safety of movement through all five African countries, out of range of NATO air strikes and rebel attacks.
Indeed, the Tuareg tribal council sent warnings to the rulers of Niger, where some of Qaddafi's generals and troops have gone to ground, that if any harm comes to them or if they are arrested, the tribes will turn their guns on the Niamey government and its forces.
Taking advantage of their new freedom, the ousted ruler's son Saadi Qaddafi and his personal security director Gen. Mansour Daw, who arrived in Niger in early September at the head of a 200-truck military convoy, crossed back into Libya this week for an unknown destination. There were earlier reports of their detention in Niger.

On Sept. 7, debkafile’s intelligence sources located Qaddafi, his sons and several thousand fighters, at the Saharan oasis of Targan, a few hundred kilometers southwest of the Libyan oasis city of Jiffra. He is presumed to have moved on to a new hideout since then, closely guarded by his Tuareg allies.

Another Qaddafi son, Khamis, commander of the 32nd Libyan Brigade whom the rebels and Western media reported killed, is said by our sources to be still in action against rebel forces at the head of this 3,000-strong elite unit.

Prevented by NATO air strikes and oversight from large-scale military movements among rebel strongholds, he has split them up into units of 20-30 fighters and scattered them around various battle zones for forays against rebel military and strategic key points. They have begun hit-and-run strikes in the towns of Brega, Ras Lanouf and Zawiya, unreported by NATO or rebel spokesmen.