Algeria ends desert siege with 23 hostages dead

ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - Algerian troops ended a siege by Islamist militants at a gas plant in the Sahara desert where 23 hostages died, with a final assault which killed all the remaining hostage-takers.

Believed to be among the 32 dead militants was their leader, Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri, a Nigerien close to al Qaeda-linked commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar, presumed mastermind of the raid.

An Algerian interior ministry statement on the death toll gave no breakdown of the number of foreigners among hostages killed since the plant was seized before dawn on Wednesday.

Details are only slowly emerging on what happened during the siege, which marked a serious escalation of unrest in northwestern Africa, where French forces are ratcheting up a war against Islamist militants in neighboring Mali.

Algeria's interior ministry said on Saturday that 107 foreign hostages and 685 Algerian hostages had survived, but did not give a detailed breakdown of those who died.

"We feel a deep and growing unease ... we fear that over the next few days we will receive bad news," said Helge Lund, Chief Executive of Norway's Statoil, which ran the plant along with Britain's BP and Algeria's state oil company.

"People we have spoken to describe unbelievable, horrible experiences," he said.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said he feared for the lives of five British citizens unaccounted for at the gas plant near the town of In Amenas, which was also home to expatriate workers from Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp and others.

One American and one British citizen have been confirmed dead. Statoil said five of its workers, all Norwegian nationals, were still missing. Japanese and American workers are also unaccounted for.

The Islamists' attack has tested Algeria's relations with the outside world, exposed the vulnerability of multinational oil operations in the Sahara and pushed Islamist radicalism in northern Africa to center stage.

Some Western governments expressed frustration at not being informed of the Algerian authorities' plans to storm the complex. Algeria, scarred by a civil war with Islamist insurgents in the 1990s which claimed 200,000 lives, had insisted there would be no negotiation in the face of terrorism.

President Barack Obama said on Saturday the United States was seeking from Algerian authorities a fuller understanding of what took place, but said "the blame for this tragedy rests with the terrorists who carried it out."

Official sources had no immediate confirmation of newspaper reports suggesting some of the hostages may have been executed by their captors as the Algerian army closed in for the final assault on Saturday.

One source close to the crisis said 16 foreign hostages were freed, including two Americans and one Portuguese.

BP's chief executive Bob Dudley said on Saturday four of its 18 workers at the site were missing. The remaining 14 were safe.

PLANNED BEFORE FRENCH LANDED IN MALI

The attack on the heavily fortified gas compound was one of the most audacious in recent years and almost certainly planned long before French troops launched a military operation in Mali this month to stem an advance by Islamist fighters.

Hundreds of hostages escaped on Thursday when the army launched a rescue operation, but many hostages were killed.

Before the interior ministry released its provisional death toll, an Algerian security source said eight Algerians and at least seven foreigners were among the victims, including two Japanese, two Britons and a French national. One British citizen was killed when the gunmen seized the hostages on Wednesday.

The U.S. State Department said on Friday one American, Frederick Buttaccio, had died but gave no further details.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said nobody was going to attack the United States and get away with it.

"We have made a commitment that we're going to go after al Qaeda wherever they are and wherever they try to hide," he said during a visit to London. "We have done that obviously in Afghanistan, Pakistan, we've done it in Somalia, in Yemen and we will do it in North Africa as well."

Earlier on Saturday, Algerian special forces found 15 unidentified burned bodies at the plant, a source told Reuters.

Mauritanian news agencies identified the field commander of the group that attacked the plant as Nigeri, a fighter from one of the Arab tribes in Niger who had joined the Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) in early-2005.

That group eventually joined up with al Qaeda to become Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). It and allied groups are the targets of the French military operation in Mali.

The news agencies described him as "one of the closest people" to Belmokhtar, who fought in Afghanistan and then in Algeria's civil war of the 1990s. Nigeri was known as a man for "difficult missions", having carried out attacks in Mauritania, Mali and Niger.

NO NEGOTIATION

Britain, Japan and other countries have expressed irritation that the Algerian army assault was ordered without consultation.

But French President Francois Hollande said the Algerian military's response seemed to have been the best option given that negotiation was not possible.

"When you have people taken hostage in such large number by terrorists with such cold determination and ready to kill those hostages - as they did - Algeria has an approach which to me, as I see it, is the most appropriate because there could be no negotiation," Hollande said.

The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions over the country's outwardly tough security measures.

Algerian officials said the attackers may have had inside help from among the hundreds of Algerians employed at the site.

Security in the half-dozen countries around the Sahara desert has long been a preoccupation of the West. Smugglers and militants have earned millions in ransom from kidnappings.

The most powerful Islamist groups operating in the Sahara were severely weakened by Algeria's secularist military in the civil war in the 1990s. But in the past two years the regional wing of al Qaeda gained fighters and arms as a result of the civil war in Libya, when arsenals were looted from Muammar Gaddafi's army.

(Additional reporting by Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Estelle Shirbon and David Alexander in London, Brian Love in Paris; Writing by Giles Elgood and Myra MacDonald)

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Scope to expand health screening programmes for elderly: Koh Poh Koon

SINGAPORE: The People's Action Party (PAP) candidate for the Punggol East by-election Dr Koh Poh Koon said he plans to set up a wellness centre for the elderly to help senior residents age actively.

He said there is scope to expand health screening and preventive programmes for the elderly in the ward.

Dr Koh told reporters that plans are still in early stages but the centre will be built as part of the new Community Centre, to be located near Rivervale Plaza.

He said fundraising for the new centre has reached 50 per cent.

Dr Koh added that he will push forward on this effort if and when he is elected MP for the area.

- CNA/ck

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Memorial service honors Swartz as activist, individual

Perhaps not surprisingly, one of the main threads running through today's memorial service in New York City for tech activist Aaron Swartz was a call to action.

That call arose again and again from varied speakers, and was sounded as one of the final notes of the observance when master of ceremonies Ben Wikler, a political campaigner and friend of Swartz's, announced that the service had come to an end but added, "I hope it's clear this is just the beginning of everything we have to do."

Prior to Wikler's closing remarks, Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman -- founder of SumOfUs.org, an organization devoted to corporate accountability, and Swartz's partner at the time of his suicide, spelled out what some of that "everything" should be.

A fitting tribute to Swartz, she said, would be for "all of us to go out today and fight to make the world a better place." Specifically, Stinebrickner-Kauffman said, the U.S. Attorney's office in Massachusetts -- which at the time of Swartz's death was prosecuting him for his alleged theft of millions of documents from the Jstor database of academic articles -- must be "held accountable" for what critics have said was its persecution of Swartz.

She said the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Swartz accessed the database, "must be sure that it's never again complicit" in the sort of pressure put on Swartz by the government. She said the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a mid-1980s antihacking law, must be reformed so "this kind of power" over accused hackers could never again be handed to prosecutors. And she said the entire criminal justice system in the U.S. must be reformed in order to make it truly just.

Stinebrickner-Kauffman also said, in a remark that inspired a roar of approval from the hundreds gathered to remember Swartz -- a champion of open access to information -- that all academic research must be made freely available to everyone, everywhere.

Quinn Norton said she'd come to speak not about the "incredibly accomplished activist" or the "Internet saint," but about "a person who almost never did any of the damn dishes" and who sang to her daughter in the car.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Edward Moyer/CNET)

'Hack the whole world'
More than one appeal for action was aimed at the tech community. Doc Searls -- a fellow at the Center for Information Technology and Society at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an alumnus fellow of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University -- spoke of how Swartz, a figurehead of the anti-SOPA movement, fought the system. Most geeks, he said, "tend to avoid the legal stuff.... There are so few geeks that go that extra step to protect us.... We need to do the work he started."

Roy Singham, chair of IT consultancy Thoughtworks and a major proponent of open-source software, spoke of Swartz's fear that the "wonderful world of technology" would be "usurped" and end up not being a tool of democracy. He contrasted Swartz with the heads of well-known and moneymaking tech companies, whom he called the "self-aggrandizing ego maniacs" who use technology for the benefit "of the 1 percent."

And Stinebrickner-Kauffman recalled a scene in which Swartz spoke before a group of programmers, wielding a picture of Harry Potter, snapping his fingers, and telling them that they could "do magic," that they could "make the world a better place with programming."

David Segal -- a politician, and executive director of the online organizing group Demand Progress -- said Swartz wanted to change everything: "He was trying to hack the whole world -- in the best possible way."

'Another human being'
But there was room too, among the cries for action, for reflection on Swartz's everyday humanity. Writer and photographer Quinn Norton, a former partner of Swartz's, noted that with his death, Swartz had "left us and entered the realm of mythmaking." She wanted to be sure he was remembered in a multidimensional way, as someone who neglected to do the dishes, who sang to her daughter in the
car, who "was another human being with all the flaws and glories that we all have."

At the same time, however, there seemed to be little doubt on the part of Quinn and the other speakers that the world had lost someone special. As Edward Tufte, the famous writer on information design, put it, Swartz was "marvelously and vigorously different" and there's a scarcity of that in today's world. Perhaps, Tufte said, "we can all be a little more different too."

A video of the service can be viewed on the "Remember Aaron Swartz" Web site. (As of this writing, the audio is garbled during the first few seconds of the archived video, but it quickly rights itself. At this point, too, only the first 40 minutes or so of the service are available for viewing.)

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Failed assassination attempt in Bulgaria - caught on tape

January 19, 2013 12:29 PM

In a failed assassination attempt on the leader of Bulgaria's ethnic Turkish party, Ahmed Dogan, a man is seen jumping out of the audience and onto the stage where Dogan is speaking. He then points the gun at Dogan's head and the gun reportedly misfires. The attacker is then tackled and beaten by security guards.

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Algeria Hostage Crisis Over, One American Dead

After the Algerian military's final assault on terrorists holding hostages at a gas complex, the four-day hostage crisis is over, but apparently with additional loss of life among the foreign hostages.

One American, Fred Buttaccio of Texas, has been confirmed dead by the U.S. State Department. Two more U.S. hostages remain unaccounted for, with growing concern among U.S. officials that they did not survive.

But another American, Mark Cobb of Corpus Christi, Texas is now confirmed as safe. Sources close to his family say Cobb, who is a senior manager of the facility, is safe and reportedly sent a text message " I'm alive."

Inside Algerian Hostage Crisis, One American Dead Watch Video

American Hostages Escape From Algeria Terrorists Watch Video

In a statement, President Obama said, "Today, the thoughts and prayers of the American people are with the families of all those who were killed and injured in the terrorist attack in Algeria. The blame for this tragedy rests with the terrorists who carried it out, and the United States condemns their actions in the strongest possible terms. ... This attack is another reminder of the threat posed by al Qaeda and other violent extremist groups in North Africa."

According to Algerian state media, 32 militants are dead and a total of 23 hostages perished during the four-day siege of the In Amenas facility in the Sahara. The Algerian Interior Ministry also says 107 foreign nationals who worked at the facility for BP and other firms were rescued or escaped from the al Qaeda-linked terrorists who took over the BP joint venture facility on Wednesday.

The Japanese government says it fears "very grave" news, with multiple casualties among the 10 Japanese citizens working at the In Amenas gas plant.

Five British nationals and one U.K. resident are either deceased or unaccounted for in the country, according to British Foreign Minister William Hague. Hague also said that the Algerians have reported that they are still trying to clear boobytraps from the site.

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Foreigners still trapped in Sahara hostage crisis

ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - More than 20 foreigners were captive or missing inside a desert gas plant on Saturday, nearly two days after the Algerian army launched an assault to free them that saw many hostages killed.

The standoff between the Algerian army and al Qaeda-linked gunmen - one of the biggest international hostage crises in decades - entered its fourth day, having thrust Saharan militancy to the top of the global agenda.

The number and fate of victims has yet to be confirmed, with the Algerian government keeping officials from Western countries far from the site where their countrymen were in peril.

Reports put the number of hostages killed at between 12 to 30, with possibly dozens of foreigners still unaccounted for - among them Norwegians, Japanese, Britons, Americans and others.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed on Friday the death of one American, Frederick Buttaccio, in the hostage situation, but gave no further details.

Two Japanese, two Britons and a French national were among the seven foreigners confirmed dead in the army's storming, the Algerian security source told Reuters. One British citizen was killed when the gunmen seized the hostages on Wednesday.

A U.S. official said on Friday that a U.S. Medevac flight carrying wounded of multiple nationalities had left Algeria.

By nightfall on Friday, the Algerian military was holding the vast residential barracks at the In Amenas gas processing plant, while gunmen were holed up in the industrial plant itself with an undisclosed number of hostages.

Scores of Westerners and hundreds of Algerian workers were inside the heavily fortified compound when it was seized before dawn on Wednesday by Islamist fighters who said they wanted a halt to a French military operation in neighboring Mali.

Hundreds escaped on Thursday when the army launched an operation, but many hostages were killed in the assault. Algerian forces destroyed four trucks holding hostages, according to the family of a Northern Irish engineer who escaped from a fifth truck and survived.

Leaders of Britain, Japan and other countries have expressed frustration that the assault was ordered without consultation and officials have grumbled at the lack of information. Many countries also withheld details about their missing citizens to avoid releasing information that might aid the captors.

An Algerian security source said 30 hostages, including at least seven Westerners, had been killed during Thursday's assault, along with at least 18 of their captors. Eight of the dead hostages were Algerian, with the nationalities of the rest of the dead still unclear, he said.

Algeria's state news agency APS put the total number of dead hostages at 12, including both foreigners and locals.

The base was home to foreign workers from Britain's BP, Norway's Statoil and Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp and others.

Norway says eight Norwegians are still missing. JGC said it was missing 10 staff. Britain and the United States have said they have citizens unaccounted for but have not said how many.

The Algerian security source said 100 foreigners had been freed but 32 were still unaccounted for.

"We must be prepared for bad news this weekend but we still have hope," Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said.

The attack has plunged international capitals into crisis mode and is a serious escalation of unrest in northwestern Africa, where French forces have been in Mali since last week fighting an Islamist takeover of Timbuktu and other towns.

"We are still dealing with a fluid and dangerous situation where a part of the terrorist threat has been eliminated in one part of the site, but there still remains a threat in another part," British Prime Minister David Cameron told his parliament.

"(The army) is still trying to achieve a ‘peaceful outcome' before neutralizing the terrorist group that is holed up in the (facility) and freeing a group of hostages that is still being held," Algeria's state news agency said on Friday, quoting a security source.

MULTINATIONAL INSURGENCY

Algerian commanders said they moved in on Thursday about 30 hours after the siege began, because the gunmen had demanded to be allowed to take their captives abroad.

A French hostage employed by a French catering company said he had hidden in his room for 40 hours under the bed before he was rescued by Algerian troops, relying on Algerian employees to smuggle him food with a password.

"I put boards up pretty much all round," Alexandre Berceaux told Europe 1 radio. "I didn't know how long I was going to stay there ... I was afraid. I could see myself already ending up in a pine box."

The captors said their attack was a response to the French military offensive in neighboring Mali. However, some U.S. and European officials say the elaborate raid probably required too much planning to have been organized from scratch in the single week since France first launched its strikes.

Paris says the incident proves its decision to fight Islamists in neighboring Mali was necessary.

Security in the half-dozen countries around the Sahara desert has long been a preoccupation of the West. Smugglers and militants have earned millions in ransom from kidnappings.

The most powerful Islamist groups operating in the Sahara were severely weakened by Algeria's secularist military in a civil war in the 1990s. But in the past two years the regional wing of Al Qaeda gained fighters and arms as a result of the civil war in Libya, when arsenals were looted from Muammar Gaddafi's army.

Al Qaeda-linked fighters, many with roots in Algeria and Libya, took control of northern Mali last year, prompting the French intervention in that poor African former colony.

The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions over the value of outwardly tough Algerian security measures.

Algerian officials said the attackers may have had inside help from among the hundreds of Algerians employed at the site.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said those responsible would be hunted down: "Terrorists should be on notice that they will find no sanctuary, no refuge, not in Algeria, not in North Africa, not anywhere. ... Those who would wantonly attack our country and our people will have no place to hide."

(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti in Cairo, Eamonn Mallie in Belfast, Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Mohammed Abbas in London, Padraic Halpin and Conor Humphries in Dublin, Andrew Quinn and David Alexander in Washington; Writing by Philippa Fletcher and Peter Graff; Editing by Andrew Roche, Tom Pfeiffer and Jackie Frank)

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SDA will "make use of new technology" to reach out to residents

SINGAPORE: The Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA) will not be holding an on site rally for the Punggol East by-election on Sunday.

The Party's candidate Desmond Lim said the party will "make use of new technology" to reach out to residents.

This will likely to be in the form an online rally which will be streamed.

Mr Lim was speaking to the media on the sidelines of a visit to the Arulmigu Velmurugan Gnanamuneeswarar Temple at Rivervale Crescent.

He said cost was an important factor in the decision, made unanimously by party members.

He said running an election is costly, and the party is small, with limited resources.

Mr Lim said using new media will also reach out to Punggol East residents, many of whom are younger and are more tech-savvy.

He added the party would release details of this arrangement "very soon".

Mr Lim added that the decision was not because the party could not get their rally application approved.

- CNA/ck

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Crave Ep. 105: How to clip your nails in space

This week on Crave, we're back with a look at all the Cravey stuff we spotted at CES 2013. Plus, Canadian astronaut Christopher Hadfield teaches us the safest way to clip our nails in outer space, and the Hal 9000 computer replica from Think Geek refuses to cooperate.

January 18, 2013 8:05 PM PST

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T'eo to hoax doubters: "I wasn't part of this"

Updated 12:15 AM ET

SOUTH BEND, Ind. Manti Te'o gave an interview to ESPN in which he denied any involvement in fabricating an online relationship with a woman he considered to be his girlfriend.

"I wasn't faking it," he told ESPN Friday night. "I wasn't part of this."

13 Photos

Manti Te'o

Te'o also said that he did not make up anything to help his Heisman Trophy candidacy.

"When (people) hear the facts, they'll know," he said. "They'll know that there is no way that I could be part of this."

Te'o spoke at the IMG Training Academy in Bradenton, Fla., where he is preparing for the NFL draft. There were no cameras at the 2?-hour interview, which was recorded.

Earlier, Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said during the taping of his weekly radio show that Te'o has to explain exactly how he was duped into an online relationship with a fictitious woman whose "death" was then faked by perpetrators of the scheme.

Skeptics have questioned the versions of events laid out by Te'o and Notre Dame, wondering why Te'o never said his relationship was with someone online and why he waited almost three weeks to tell the school about being duped.

Play Video

Will scandal affect Manti Te'o's NFL future?

According to Notre Dame, Te'o received a call on Dec. 6 from the girl he had only been in contact with by telephone and online, and who he thought had died in September. After telling his family what happened while he was home in Hawaii for Christmas, he informed Notre Dame coaches on Dec. 26.

Notre Dame said it hired investigators to look into Te'o's claims and their findings showed he was the victim of an elaborate hoax.

Play Video

Notre Dame rallies to Manti Te'o's side

Te'o released a statement on Wednesday, soon after Deadspin.com broke news of the scam with a lengthy story, saying he had been humiliated and hurt by the "sick joke." But he has laid low since.

ESPN officials posted a photo on Twitter late Friday night of reporter Jeremy Schapp with Te'o and his attorney. Te'o has been working out at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., as he prepares for the NFL combine and draft.

Play Video

Notre Dame athletic director: Faith in Te'o hasn't shaken "one iota"

Swarbrick said earlier in the day that he believed Te'o would ultimately speak publicly.

"We are certainly encouraging it to happen," he said. "We think it's important and we'd like to see it happen sooner rather than later."

He said thatmant before the Deadspin story, Te'o and his family had planned to go public with the story Monday.

"Sometimes the best laid plans don't quite work, and this was an example of that. Because the family lost the opportunity in some ways to control the story," he said. "It is in the Te'o family's court. We are very much encouraging them."

Former NFL coach Tony Dungy, who mentored Michael Vick when he returned to the NFL after doing prison time, had similar advice.

20 Photos

2013 BCS National Championship

"I don't know the whole case but I always advise people to face up to it and just talk to people and say what happened," Dungy said while attending the NCAA convention in Dallas on Friday. "The truth is the best liberator, so that's what I would do. And he's going to get questioned a lot about it."

Te'o led a lightly regarded Fighting Irish team to a 12-0 regular season and the BCS title game, where they were routed 42-14 by Alabama and Te'o played poorly.

Dungy said Te'o could face the toughest questions from NFL teams.

"If I was still coaching and we're thinking about taking this guy in the first round, you want to know not exactly what happened but what is going on with this young man and is it going to be a deterrent to him surviving in the NFL and is it going to stop him from being a star," Dungy said. "So just tell the truth about what happened and this is why, I think, that's the best thing."

Deadspin reported that friends and relatives of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, a 22-year-old who lives in California, believe he created Kekua. The website also reported Te'o and Tuiasosopo knew each other — which has led to questions about Te'o's involvement in the hoax.

Swarbrick understands why there are questions.

"They have every right to say that," Swarbrick said "Now I have some more information than they have. But they have every right to say that. ... I just ask those people to apply the same skepticism to everything about this. I have no doubt the perpetrators have a story they will yet spin about what went on here. I hope skepticism also greets that when they're articulating what that is."

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Armstrong Tearful Over Telling Kids Truth

Lance Armstrong, 41, began to cry today as he described finding out his son Luke, 13, was publicly defending him from accusations that he doped during his cycling career.

Armstrong said that he knew, at that moment, that he would have to publicly admit to taking performance-enhancing drugs and having oxygen-boosting blood transfusions when competing in the Tour de France. He made those admissions to Oprah Winfrey in a two-part interview airing Thursday and tonight.

"When this all really started, I saw my son defending me, and saying, 'That's not true. What you're saying about my dad? That's not true,'" Armstrong said, tearing up during the second installment of his interview tonight. "And it almost goes to this question of, 'Why now?'

"That's when I knew I had to talk," Armstrong said. "He never asked me. He never said, 'Dad, is this true?' He trusted me."

He told Winfrey that he sat down with his children over the holidays to come clean about his drug use.

"I said, 'Listen, there's been a lot of questions about your dad, about my career and whether I doped or did not dope,'" he said he told them. "'I always denied that. I've always been ruthless and defiant about that, which is why you defended me, which makes it even sicker' I said, 'I want you to know that it's true.'"

He added that his mother was "a wreck" over the scandal.

Armstrong said that the lowest point in his fall from grace and the top of the cycling world came when his cancer charity, Livestrong, asked him to consider stepping down.

George Burns/Harpo Studios, Inc.

Lance Armstrong-Winfrey Interview: How Honest Was He? Watch Video

Lance Armstrong-Winfrey Interview: Doping Confession Watch Video

After the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency alleged in October that Armstrong doped throughout his reign as Tour de France champion, Armstrong said, his major sponsors -- including Nike, Anheuser Busch and Trek -- called one by one to end their endorsement contracts with him.

"Everybody out," he said. "Still not the most humbling moment."

Then came the call from Livestrong, the charity he founded at age 25 when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer.

"The story was getting out of control, which was my worst nightmare," he said. "I had this place in my mind that they would all leave. The one I didn't think would leave was the foundation.

"That was most humbling moment," he said.

Armstrong first stepped down as chairman of the board for the charity before being asked to end his association with the charity entirely. Livestrong is now run independently of Armstrong.

"I don't think it was 'We need you to step down,' but, 'We need you to consider stepping down for yourself,'" he said, recounting the call. "I had to think about that a lot. None of my kids, none of my friends have said, 'You're out,' and the foundation was like my sixth child. To make that decision, to step aside, that was big."

In Thursday's interview installment, the seven-time winner of the Tour de France admitted publicly for the first time that he doped throughout his career, confirming after months of angry denials the findings of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which stripped him of his titles in October.

He told Winfrey that he was taking the opportunity to confess to everything he had done wrong, including for years angrily denying claims that he had doped.

READ MORE: Armstrong Admits to Doping

WATCH: Armstrong's Many Denials Caught on Tape

READ MORE: 10 Scandalous Public Confessions

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Algeria ends desert siege, but dozens killed

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algerian forces stormed a desert gas complex to free hundreds of hostages but 30, including several Westerners, were killed in the assault along with at least 11 of their Islamist captors, an Algerian security source told Reuters.

Western leaders whose compatriots were being held did little to disguise their irritation at being kept in the dark by Algeria before the raid - and over its bloody outcome. French, British and Japanese staff were among the dead, the source said.

An Irish engineer who survived said he saw four jeeps full of hostages blown up by Algerian troops whose commanders said they moved in about 30 hours after the siege began because the gunmen had demanded to be allowed to take their captives abroad.

And while a crisis has ended that posed a serious dilemma for Paris and its allies as French troops attacked the hostage-takers' al Qaeda allies in neighboring Mali, it left question marks over the ability of OPEC-member Algeria to protect vital energy resources and strained its relations with Western powers.

Two Japanese, two Britons and a French national were among at least seven foreigners killed, the source told Reuters. Eight dead hostages were Algerian. The nationalities of the rest, as well as of perhaps dozens more who escaped, were unclear. Some 600 local Algerian workers, less well guarded, survived.

Fourteen Japanese were among those still unaccounted for by the early hours of Friday, their Japanese employer said.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has cancelled part of his trip in Southeast Asia, his first overseas trip since taking office, and is considering flying home early due to the hostage crisis, Japan's top government spokesman said on Friday.

"The action of Algerian forces was regrettable," said Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, adding Tokyo had not been informed of the operation in advance.

Americans, Norwegians, Romanians and an Austrian have also been mentioned by their governments as having been captured by the militants who called themselves the "Battalion of Blood" and had demanded France end its week-old offensive in Mali.

Underlining the view of African and Western leaders that they face a multinational Islamist insurgency across the Sahara - a conflict that prompted France to send hundreds of troops to Mali last week - the official source said only two of the 11 dead militants were Algerian, including the squad's leader.

The bodies of three Egyptians, two Tunisians, two Libyans, a Malian and a Frenchman were found, the security source said.

The group had claimed to have dozens of guerrillas on site and it was unclear whether any militants had managed to escape.

The overall commander, Algerian officials said, was Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran of Afghanistan in the 1980s and Algeria's bloody civil war of the 1990s. He appears not to have been present and has now risen in stature among a host of Saharan Islamists, flush with arms and fighters from chaotic Libya, whom Western powers fear could spread violence far beyond the desert.

"NO TO BLACKMAIL"

Algeria's government spokesman made clear the leadership in Algiers remains implacably at odds with Islamist guerrillas who remain at large in the south years after the civil war in which some 200,000 people died. Communication Minister Mohamed Said repeated their refusal ever to negotiate with hostage-takers.

"We say that in the face of terrorism, yesterday as today as tomorrow, there will be no negotiation, no blackmail, no respite in the struggle against terrorism," he told APS news agency.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, who warned people to prepare for bad news and who cancelled a major policy speech on Friday to deal with the situation, said through a spokesman that he would have liked Algeria to have consulted before the raid.

A Briton and an Algerian had also been killed on Wednesday.

The prime minister of Norway, whose state energy company Statoil runs the Tigantourine gas field with Britain's BP and Algeria's national oil company, said he too was not informed.

U.S. officials had no clear information on the fate of Americans, though a U.S. military drone had flown over the area. Washington, like its European allies, has endorsed France's move to protect the Malian capital by mounting air strikes last week and now sending 1,400 ground troops to attack Islamist rebels.

A U.S. official said on Thursday it would provide transport aircraft to help France with a mission whose vital importance, President Francois Hollande said, was demonstrated by the attack in Algeria. Some fear, however, that going on the offensive in the remote region could provoke more bloodshed closer to home.

The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions, over the value of security measures that are outwardly draconian.

Foreign firms were pulling non-essential staff out of the country, which has recovered stability only in recent years and whose ruling establishment, heirs to fighters who ended French rule 50 years ago, has resisted demands for reform and political freedoms of the kind that swept North Africa in the Arab Spring.

"The embarrassment for the government is great," said Azzedine Layachi, an Algerian political scientist at New York's St John's University. "The heart of Algeria's economy is in the south. where the oil and gas fields are. For this group to have attacked there, in spite of tremendous security, is remarkable."

"KILL INFIDELS"

A local man who had escaped from the facility told Reuters the militants appeared to have inside knowledge of the layout of the complex, supporting the view of security experts that their raid was long-planned, even if the Mali war provided a motive.

"The terrorists told us at the very start that they would not hurt Muslims but were only interested in the Christians and infidels," Abdelkader, 53, said by telephone from his home in the nearby town of In Amenas. "'We will kill them,' they said."

Algiers, whose leaders have long had frosty relations with the former colonial power France and other Western countries, may have some explaining to do over its tactics in putting an end to a hostage crisis whose scale was comparable to few in recent decades bar those involving Chechen militants in Russia.

Government spokesman Said sounded unapologetic, however: "When the terrorist group insisted on leaving the facility, taking the foreign hostages with them to neighboring states, the order was issued to special units to attack the position where the terrorists were entrenched," he told state news agency APS, which said some 600 local workers were freed.

The militants said earlier they had 41 foreign hostages.

"ARMY BLASTED HOSTAGES"

Stephen McFaul, an electrical engineer, told his family in Northern Ireland after the operation that he narrowly escaped death, first when bound and gagged by the gunmen who fastened explosives around the hostages' necks and then on Thursday when he was in a convoy of five vehicles driving across the complex.

"(The gunmen) were moving five jeeploads of hostages from one part of the compound," his brother Brian McFaul said. "At that stage, they were intercepted by the Algerian army.

"The army bombed four out of five of the trucks and four of them were destroyed ... He presumed everyone else in the other trucks was killed ... The truck my brother was in crashed and at that stage Stephen was able to make a break for his freedom."

McFaul said it was unclear whether the vehicles had been struck by missiles fired from helicopters or by ground forces.

The attack in Algeria did not stop France from pressing on with its campaign in Mali. It said on Thursday it now had 1,400 troops on the ground there, and combat was under way against the rebels that it first began targeting from the air last week.

"What is happening in Algeria justifies all the more the decision I made in the name of France to intervene in Mali in line with the U.N. charter," Hollande said on Thursday.

The French action last week came as a surprise but received widespread public international support. Neighbouring African countries planning to provide ground troops for a U.N. force by September have said they will move faster to deploy them.

(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti in Cairo, Eamonn Mallie in Belfast, Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Mohammed Abbas in London and Padraic Halpin and Conor Humprhies in Dublin; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Peter Millership and Michael Perry)

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Kim Dotcom poised for return with Megaupload successor

WELLINGTON: Internet tycoon Kim Dotcom will launch a new file-sharing site at his Auckland mansion on Sunday, exactly a year after armed police arrested him at the same venue in the world's largest online piracy case.

Dotcom's new venture, mega.co.nz, aims to recreate the success of his Megaupload empire, which boasted 50 million daily visitors and accounted for four percent of all Internet traffic before it was shut down after the police raid.

The 38-year-old, who changed his name from Kim Schmitz, remains free on bail in New Zealand as US authorities seek his extradition on a range of charges including money laundering, racketeering and copyright theft.

They allege Megaupload sites netted more than US$175 million in criminal proceeds and cost copyright owners more than US$500 million by offering pirated copies of movies, TV shows, music and other content.

Dotcom denies any wrongdoing and the charges, which carry jail terms of up to 20 years, have not discouraged him from launching the new Mega service, which he has enthusiastically promoted on Twitter in recent weeks.

"I think you will be very happy with the new #Mega," he tweeted Friday, "It's like time travel. We'll take you to the future!!!"

The tech entrepreneur has promised an "epic" launch for the new site and even impersonated Willy Wonka to promote it at an Auckland shop on Thursday, handing out tubs of ice cream with golden tickets to the event hidden in them.

Details of the planned service are scarce, but the site promises to use state-of-the-art encryption methods that mean only users, not the site's administrators, know what they are uploading.

That would theoretically stop authorities from accusing administrators of knowingly aiding online piracy, the central allegation facing Dotcom.

Dotcom has said Mega will offer users 50GB of free storage, significantly more than similar sites such as Dropbox and Google Drive, but most details remain under wraps until they are unveiled Sunday at the Dotcom Mansion.

The German national was preparing for his birthday party at the lavish Auckland property in January last year when armed police staged a dawn raid, tracking him down in a hidden panic room running off his bedroom.

Officers seized more than a dozen luxury cars, including a 1959 pink Cadillac, along with valuable artworks and a sawn-off shotgun, while Dotcom's bank accounts were frozen and he spent more than a month in jail.

Eventually freed on bail, his legal team have enjoyed a number of successes challenging the prosecution case, including a ruling that the police raid was illegal and a government admission that Dotcom was illegally spied upon before his arrest.

The extradition hearing is due to be heard in August.

-AFP/fl

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Want a fake Facebook girlfriend? Here's how

Some people are just unlovable. Or they seem to attract lovers who are one leg short of a stable table and cause them such misery that they have to consign them to history.

This would have been fine in olden times. They would have gone to a bar with a book, and drunk themselves quite silly.

But now there's Facebook, the all-encompassing, always-on repository of everything that is happening to everyone.

So being a singleton doesn't look good. It makes you look like the spare part that no one desires.

Thankfully, a group of very caring Brazilians has decided to come to the rescue of all of those who currently appear denuded of love on Facebook. They will create a fake Facebook girlfriend for you.

NamoroFake.com says, in Portuguese, that it can create a lissom lover in the blink of an eye and the passing of $39.99. Yes, around the price of two lapdances.

Please don't think that they just slap up a picture and take your money. Oh, no. They create a whole fake Facebook profile, so authentic that it's adorned with cute comments and status updates like: "Oh, cutey, Ren and Stimpy miss you and so do I."

You might wonder where these fake girlfriends are coming from. Well, ABC News lovingly informs me that the site invites women to offer their profiles up for virtual grabbing, with the incentive of a 50 percent profit share.

This seems eminently equitable.

Moreover, the site understands the psychology of men. It explains:

Sometimes people need to rent a fake girlfriend to make jealous a jealous ex-girlfriend. In truth, we have a lot of clients for that reason. After a breakup, the ex-boyfriends want to show that they are already with another person to feel good. One immediate way to do this is to hire a fake girlfriend to maintain appearances.

More Technically Incorrect

Appearances are, often, more important in relationships than, say, reality. Surely you, too, have enjoyed lovers for whom the approval of family, friends, and pastor were more important than the heightened quality of your actual love.

I feel sure that the creation of this site has absolutely nothing to do with any events that may or may not have occurred in the life of one Manti T'eo, amateur football player (and, perhaps, amateur lover too).

Still, the creators have tried to think of several amorous eventualities. They even offer a $19.99 service that creates a very fine ex-girlfriend for you. This might well be useful if you're trying to persuade your next amorous target that you're not the entirely lonely, pitiful creature that you actually are.

Naturally, there will come a point where your Facebook friends will be desperate to see a picture of the two of you together.

Presumably that is the time when you explain that she wasn't quite right for you because she had the empathetic level of a mailbox and the intuitive breadth of a bicycle tire.

And that's the point at which you transfer her to the status of ex-girlfriend and pay another $39.99 for another new fake girlfriend.

This way, you'll never have to pay for dinner for two again.

It's sad, though, that the service seems to be only available for men.

I have several women friends who would dearly love to have a fake Facebook boyfriend in order to ease their burden as they climb the corporate ladder in search of untold riches and boundless unhappiness.

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Manti Te'o kept girlfriend myth alive after revelation

SOUTH BEND, Ind. Not once but twice after he supposedly discovered his online girlfriend of three years never even existed, Notre Dame All-American linebacker Manti Te'o perpetuated the heartbreaking story about her death.

13 Photos

Manti Te'o

An Associated Press review of news coverage found that the Heisman Trophy runner-up talked about his doomed love in a Web interview on Dec. 8 and again in a newspaper interview published Dec. 11. He and the university said Wednesday that he learned on Dec. 6 that it was all a hoax, that not only wasn't she dead, she wasn't real.

On Thursday, a day after Te'o's inspiring, playing-through-heartache story was exposed as a bizarre lie, Te'o and Notre Dame faced questions from sports writers and fans about whether he really was duped, as he claimed, or whether he and the university were complicit in the hoax and misled the public, perhaps to improve his chances of winning the Heisman.

Yahoo sports columnist Dan Wetzel said the case has "left everyone wondering whether this was really the case of a naive football player done wrong by friends or a fabrication that has yet to play to its conclusion."

Gregg Doyel, national columnist for CBSSports.com, was more direct.

"Nothing about this story has been comprehensible, or logical, and that extends to what happens next," he wrote. "I cannot comprehend Manti Te'o saying anything that could make me believe he was a victim."

On Wednesday, Te'o and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said the player was drawn into a virtual romance with a woman who used the phony name Lennay Kekua, and was fooled into believing she died of leukemia in September. They said his only contact with the woman was via the Internet and telephone.

Te'o also lost his grandmother — for real — the same day his girlfriend supposedly died, and his role in leading Notre Dame to its best season in decades endeared him to fans and put him at the center of college football's biggest feel-good story of the year.

Relying on information provided by Te'o's family members, the South Bend Tribune reported in October that Te'o and Kekua first met, in person, in 2009, and that the two had also gotten together in Hawaii, where Te'o grew up.

Te'o never mentioned a face-to-face meeting with Kekua in public comments reviewed by the AP. And an AP review of media reports about Te'o since Sept. 13 turned up no instance in which he directly confirmed or denied those stories — until Wednesday.

Among the outstanding questions Thursday: Why didn't Te'o ever clarify the nature of his relationship as the story took on a life of its own?

Te'o's agent, Tom Condon, said the athlete had no plans to make any public statements Thursday in Bradenton, Fla., where he has been training with other NFL hopefuls at the IMG Academy.

Notre Dame said Te'o found out that Kekau was not a real person through a phone call he received at an awards ceremony in Orlando, Fla., on Dec. 6. He told Notre Dame coaches about the situation on Dec. 26.

Play Video

Manti Te'o's girlfriend hoax: How did it happen?

The AP's media review turned up two instances during that gap when the football star mentioned Kekua in public.

Te'o was in New York for the Heisman presentation on Dec. 8 and, during an interview before the ceremony that ran on the WSBT.com, the website for a South Bend TV station, Te'o said: "I mean, I don't like cancer at all. I lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer. So I've really tried to go to children's hospitals and see, you know, children."

In a story that ran in the Daily Press of Newport News, Va., on Dec. 11, Te'o recounted why he played a few days after he found out Kekau died in September, and the day she was supposedly buried.

"She made me promise, when it happened, that I would stay and play," he said.

On Wednesday, Swarbrick said Notre Dame did not go public with its findings sooner because it expected the Te'o family to come forward first. But Deadspin.com broke the story Wednesday.

Reporters were turned away Thursday at the main gate of IMG's sprawling, secure complex. Te'o remained on the grounds, said a person familiar with situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because neither Te'o nor IMG authorized the release of the information.

"This whole thing is so nutsy that I believe it only could have happened at Notre Dame, where mythology trumps common sense on a daily basis. ... Given the choice between reality and fiction, Notre Dame always will choose fiction," sports writer Rick Telander said in the Chicago Sun-Times.

"Which brings me to what I believe is the real reason Te'o and apparently his father, at least went along with this scheme: the Heisman Trophy.

Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass blasted both Te'o and Notre Dame.

"When your girlfriend dying of leukemia after suffering a car crash tells you she loves you, even if it might help you win the Heisman Trophy, you check it out," he said.

He said the university's failure to call a news conference and go public sooner means "Notre Dame is complicit in the lie."

"The school fell in love with the Te'o girlfriend myth," he wrote.

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Lance Armstrong Admits to Doping

Lance Armstrong, formerly cycling's most decorated champion and considered one of America's greatest athletes, confessed to cheating for at least a decade, admitting on Thursday that he owed all seven of his Tour de France titles and the millions of dollars in endorsements that followed to his use of illicit performance-enhancing drugs.

After years of denying that he had taken banned drugs and received oxygen-boosting blood transfusions, and attacking his teammates and competitors who attempted to expose him, Armstrong came clean with Oprah Winfrey in an exclusive interview, admitting to using banned substances for years.

"I view this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times," he said. "I know the truth. The truth isn't what was out there. The truth isn't what I said.

"I'm a flawed character, as I well know," Armstrong added. "All the fault and all the blame here falls on me."

In October, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency issued a report in which 11 former Armstrong teammates exposed the system with which they and Armstrong received drugs with the knowledge of their coaches and help of team physicians.

George Burns/Courtesy of Harpo Studios, Inc./AP Photo

Lance Armstrong Admits Using Performance-Enhancing Drugs Watch Video

Lance Armstrong's Oprah Confession: The Consequences Watch Video

Lance Armstrong's Many Denials Caught on Tape Watch Video

The U.S. Postal Service Cycling Team "ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen," USADA said in its report.

As a result of USADA's findings, Armstrong was stripped of his Tour de France titles. Soon, longtime sponsors including Nike began to abandon him, too.

READ MORE: Did Doping Cause Armstrong's Cancer?

Armstrong said he was driven to cheat by a "ruthless desire to win."

He told Winfrey that his competition "cocktail" consisted of EPO, blood transfusions and testosterone, and that he had previously used cortisone. He would not, however, give Winfrey the details of when, where and with whom he doped during seven winning Tours de France between 1999 and 2005.

He said he stopped doping following his 2005 Tour de France victory and did not use banned substances when he placed third in 2009 and entered the tour again in 2010.

"It was a mythic perfect story and it wasn't true," Armstrong said of his fairytale story of overcoming testicular cancer to become the most celebrated cyclist in history.

READ MORE: 10 Scandalous Public Confessions

PHOTOS: Olympic Doping Scandals: Past and Present

PHOTOS: Tour de France 2012

Armstrong would not name other members of his team who doped, but admitted that as the team's captain he set an example. He admitted he was "a bully" but said there "there was a never a directive" from him that his teammates had to use banned substances.

"At the time it did not feel wrong?" Winfrey asked.

"No," Armstrong said. "Scary."

"Did you feel bad about it?" she asked again.

"No," he said.

Armstrong said he thought taking the drugs was similar to filling his tires with air and bottle with water. He never thought of his actions as cheating, but "leveling the playing field" in a sport rife with doping.

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Sahara hostage siege turns Mali war global

ALGIERS/BAMAKO (Reuters) - Islamist fighters have opened an international front in Mali's civil war by taking dozens of Western hostages at a gas plant in the Algerian desert just as French troops launched an offensive against rebels in neighboring Mali.

Nearly 24 hours after gunmen stormed the natural gas pumping site and workers' housing before dawn on Wednesday, little was certain beyond a claim by a group calling itself the "Battalion of Blood" that it was holding 41 foreign nationals, including Americans, Japanese and Europeans, at Tigantourine, deep in the Sahara.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague confirmed one Briton had been killed and "a number" of others were being held hostage. Algerian media said an Algerian was killed in the assault. Another local report said a Frenchman had died.

"This is a dangerous and rapidly developing situation," Hague told reporters in Sydney on Thursday, adding Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron had spoken with the Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

"We have sent a rapid deployment team from our Foreign Office in order to reinforce our embassy and consulate staff there. The safety of those involved and their co-workers is our absolutely priority and we will work around the clock to resolve this crisis."

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a daily briefing after a government emergency meeting that: "Japan will work to secure the release of Japanese citizens as soon as possible in close cooperation with other involved nations."

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in Vietnam on the first leg of a Southeast Asian tour, told reporters that "Japan will never tolerate such an act", according to the Jiji news agency.

One thing is clear: as a headline-grabbing counterpunch to this week's French buildup in Mali, it presents French President Francois Hollande with a daunting dilemma and spreads fallout from Mali's war against loosely allied bands of al Qaeda-inspired rebels far beyond Africa, challenging Washington and Europe.

A French businessman with employees at the site said the foreigners were bound and under tight guard, while local staff, numbering 150 or more, were held apart and had more freedom.

Led by an Algerian veteran of guerrilla wars in Afghanistan, the group demanded France halt its week-old intervention in Mali, an operation endorsed by Western and African allies who fear that al Qaeda, flush with men and arms from the defeated forces of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, is building a haven in the desert.

Hollande, who won wide praise for ordering air strikes and sending troops to the former French colony, said little in response. In office for only eight months, he has warned of a long, hard struggle in Mali and now faces a risk of attacks on more French and other Western targets in Africa and beyond.

The Algerian government ruled out negotiating and the United States and other Western governments condemned what they called a terrorist attack on a facility, now shut down, that produces 10 percent of Algeria's gas, much of which is pumped to Europe.

The militants, communicating through established contacts with media in neighboring Mauritania, said they had dozens of men at the base, near the town of In Amenas close to the Libyan border, and that they were armed with mortars and anti-aircraft missiles.

They said they had repelled a raid by Algerian forces after dark on Wednesday. There was no government comment on that. Algerian officials said earlier about 20 gunmen were involved.

LIVES AT RISK

The militants issued no explicit threat but made clear the hostages' lives were at risk: "We hold the Algerian government and the French government and the countries of the hostages fully responsible if our demands are not met and it is up to them to stop the brutal aggression against our people in Mali," read one statement carried by Mauritanian media.

The group also said its fighters had rigged explosives around the site and any attempt to free the hostages would lead to a "tragic end." The large numbers of gunmen and hostages involved pose serious problems for any rescue operation.

Smaller hostage-taking incidents have been common in the Sahara and financial gain plays a part in the actions of groups whose members mingle extremist religious aims with traditional smuggling and other pursuits in the lawless, borderless region.

Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia said the raid was led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s and recently set up his own group in the Sahara after falling out with other local al Qaeda leaders.

A holy warrior-cum-smuggler dubbed "The Uncatchable" by French intelligence and "Mister Marlboro" by some locals for his illicit cigarette-running business, Belmokhtar's links to those who seized towns across northern Mali last year are unclear.

French media said the militants were also demanding that Algeria, whose government fought a bloody war against Islamists in the 1990s, release dozens of prisoners from its jails.

AMERICANS

The militants said seven Americans were among the 41 foreign hostages - a figure U.S. officials said they could not confirm.

Norwegian energy company Statoil, which operates the gas field in a joint venture with Britain's BP and the Algerian state company Sonatrach, said nine of its Norwegian employees and three of its Algerian staff were being held.

Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp. said in a statement it was cooperating with the government but that it would not comment the number of its employees kidnapped or the location of the incident. According to Japanese media reports, five of the firm's employees were among the hostages.

Also reported kidnapped, according to various sources, were a French national, an Austrian, an Irishman and the Britons.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said: "I want to assure the American people that the United States will take all necessary and proper steps that are required to deal with this situation."

He said he lacked firm information on whether there were links to the situation in Mali. Analysts pointed to shifting alliances and rivalries among Islamists in the region to suggest the hostage-takers may have a range of motives.

In their own statements, they condemned Algeria's secularist government for "betraying" its predecessors in the bloody anti-colonial war against French rule half a century ago by letting French warplanes fly over its territory to Mali. They also accused Algeria of shutting its border to Malian refugees.

Panetta said Washington was still studying legal and other issues before providing more help to France in the war in Mali.

Hollande has called for international support against rebels who France says pose a threat to Africa and the West, and admits it faces a long struggle against well-equipped fighters who seized Timbuktu and other oasis towns in northern Mali and have imposed Islamic law, including public amputations and beheading.

Islamists have warned Hollande that he has "opened the gates of hell" for all French citizens.

Some of those held at the facility, about 1,300 km (800 miles) inland, had sporadic contact with the outside world.

The head of a French catering company said he had information from a manager who supervises some 150 Algerian employees at the site. Regis Arnoux of CIS Catering told BFM television the local staff was being prevented from leaving but was otherwise free to move around inside and keep on working.

"The Westerners are kept in a separate wing of the base," Arnoux said. "They are tied up and are being filmed. Electricity is cut off, and mobile phones have no charge.

"Direct action seems very difficult. ... Algerian officials have told the French authorities as well as BP that they have the situation under control and do not need their assistance."

MALI OFFENSIVE

French army chief Edouard Guillaud said ground forces were stepping up their operation to engage directly "within hours" the alliance of Islamist fighters, grouping al Qaeda's North African wing AQIM and Mali's home-grown Ansar Dine and MUJWA.

West African military chiefs said the French would soon be supported by about 2,000 troops from Nigeria, Chad, Niger and other states - part of a U.N.-mandated deployment that had been expected to start in September before Hollande intervened.

Chad's foreign minister, Moussa Faki Mahamat, told Radio France International his country alone would send 2,000 troops, suggesting plans for the regional force were already growing.

In Mali, residents said a column of some 30 French Sagaie armored vehicles had set off toward rebel positions from the town of Niono, 300 km (190 miles) from the capital, Bamako.

A Malian military source said French special forces units were taking part in the operation. Guillaud said France's strikes, involving Rafale and Mirage jet fighters, were being hampered because militants were sheltering among civilians.

Many inhabitants of northern Mali have welcomed the French attacks, although some also fear being caught in the cross-fire.

Hollande said on Tuesday that French forces would remain in Mali until stability returned to the West African nation.

The conflict, in a landlocked state of 15 million twice the size of France, has displaced an estimated 30,000 people and raised concerns across mostly Muslim West Africa of a radicalization of Islam in the region.

But many who have lived for many months under harsh and violent Islamist rule said they welcomed the French.

"There is a great hope," one man said from Timbuktu, where he said Islamist fighters were trying to blend into civilian neighborhoods. "We hope that the city will be freed soon."

(Additional reporting by Pascal Fletcher and Andrew Callus in London, Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Laurent Prieur in Nouakchott, Daniel Flynn in Dakar, John Irish, Catherine Bremer and Nick Vinocur in Paris, David Alexander in Rome, Andrew Quinn in Washington, Jane Wardell in Sydney and Kaori Kaneko in Tokyo; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Peter Cooney and Michael Perry)

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Punggol East 5-year plan won't cost much: RP's Jeyaretnam

SINGAPORE: The Reform Party's candidate for Punggol East, Mr Kenneth Jeyaretnam, said the five-year plan he has in mind for residents of the ward will not cost a lot of money.

He said this in response to questions from reporters on Thursday on how he intends to fund the plan, which will include a legal clinic to help those in debt, as well as a tuition club.

Mr Jeyaretnam, who is Secretary-General of the party, intends to unveil the plan next week.

He announced the plan on Nomination Day on Wednesday.

Mr Jeyaretnam said he will be discussing the plan with his grassroots team. He added that several residents of Punggol East are in the team as his primary advisers in this by-election.

The Reform Party chief said that he will not hold more than two rallies. The first will probably be held this weekend.

-CNA/ac

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Otherworldly Craigslist ad seeks 'Star Trek' role-players

The author of the Craigslist ad will most likely be wearing a Captain Picard uniform similar to this one auctioned by Christie's in 2006.

(Credit:
Christie's Images Ltd. 2006)

For those ladies fluent in Klingon but who just can't seem to find a boyfriend, you're now in luck. Apparently, a certain someone is seeking women for "Star Trek" role-playing -- strictly "The Next Generation."

A recent Craigslist ad titled "Make It So" is making the joke rounds on Twitter today. The ad promises "no nudity, no touching" but asks for two to three women to get in character with the ad's author as he plays the "honorable" and "intellectual" Captain Picard.

Apparently Make It So has some serious issues with Captain Kirk, who he says "isn't half the Captain that Picard is" and is also a "fat chauvinist ladies man." He says that last time he tried to role-play "The Original Series," it was a "disaster." "There will be no mixing of eras," he proclaims.

Once he finds some suitable women that "know a lot about the show," the roleplaying can commence in his mom's garage where he has built a bridge and a small shuttlecraft. He will provide the scripts. The women have to have their own costumes and a phaser or VISOR would also be helpful.

What's in it for those lady callers? Maybe a lunch made by Make It So's mom and some blank doctor's prescriptions.

"Nothing weird is going to happen," he promises.

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Manti Te'o says he's the victim of "girlfriend" hoax

Updated 11:20 p.m. ET

SOUTH BEND, Ind. Notre Dame said a story that star Manti Te'o's girlfriend had died of leukemia — a loss he said inspired him all season and helped him lead the Irish to the BCS title game — turned out to be a hoax apparently perpetrated against the linebacker.

13 Photos

Manti Te'o

Notre Dame Fighting Irish Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick held a press conference late Wednesday about the apparent hoax Wednesday after Deadspin.com said it could find no record that Lennay Kekua ever existed.

"This was a very elaborate, very sophisticated hoax perpetrated for reasons we can't fully understand," Swarbrick said.

CBS News and its morning program, "CBS This Morning," were among the many news outlets that reported on the "hoax" girlfriend's death. "CBS This Morning" will have an update on the report Thursday.

The Notre Dame athletic director insisted "several things" led him to believe Te'o did not create the girlfriend himself after the university's investigation into the situation, led by a private investigative firm.

"Manti was the victim of that hoax. He has to carry that with him for a while. In many ways, Manti was the perfect mark because he's the guy who was so willing to believe in others," Swarbrick said. "The pain was real. The grieving was real. The affection was real."

By Te'o's own account, she was an "online" girlfriend.

"This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online. We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her," he said in statement.

"To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating."

"In retrospect, I obviously should have been much more cautious. If anything good comes of this, I hope it is that others will be far more guarded when they engage with people online than I was."

The linebacker's father, Brian Te'o, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press in early October that he and his wife had never met Kekua, saying they were hoping to meet her at the Wake Forest game in November. The father said he believed the relationship was just beginning to get serious when she died.

Notre Dame Fighting Irish Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick at a press conference on Jan. 16, 2013.

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CBS News

Swarbrick likened the situation to the 2010 movie "Catfish," in which "young filmmakers document their colleague's budding online friendship" with an allegedly young woman that turns out also to be a hoax.

The university said its coaches were informed by Te'o and his parents on Dec. 26 that Te'o had been the victim of what appeared to be a hoax.

Someone using a fictitious name "apparently ingratiated herself with Manti and then conspired with others to lead him to believe she had tragically died of leukemia," the school said.

Swarbrick said the investigation revealed "several" perpetrators, although the exact number is unclear. He said the university became convinced of the hoax based on "the joy they were taking...referring to what they accomplished and what they had done."

Te'o talked freely about the relationship after her supposed death and how much she meant to him.

In a story that appeared in the South Bend Tribune on Oct. 12, Manti's father, Brian, recounted a story about how his son and Kekua met after Notre Dame had played at Stanford in 2009. Brian Te'o also told the newspaper that Kekua had visited Hawaii and the met with his son. Brian Te'o told the AP in an interview in October that he and his wife had never met Manti's girlfriend but they had hoped to at the Wake Forest game in November. The father said he believed the relationship was just beginning to get serious when she died.

The Tribune released a statement saying: "At the Tribune, we are as stunned by these revelations as everyone else. Indeed, this season we reported the story of this fake girlfriend and her death as details were given to us by Te'o, members of his family and his coaches at Notre Dame."

The week before Notre Dame played Michigan State on Sept. 15, coach Brian Kelly told reporters when asked that Te'o's grandmother and a friend had died. Te'o didn't miss the game. He said Kekua had told him not to miss a game if she died. Te'o turned in one of his best performances of the season in the 20-3 victory in East Lansing, and his playing through heartache became a prominent theme during the Irish's undefeated regular season.

"My family and my girlfriend's family have received so much love and support from the Notre Dame family," he said after that game. "Michigan State fans showed some love. And it goes to show that people understand that football is just a game, and it's a game that we play, and we have fun doing it. But at the end of the day, what matters is the people who are around you, and family. I appreciate all the love and support that everybody's given my family and my girlfriend's family."

Manti Te'o #5 of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish reacts after beating the Michigan State Spartans 20-3 at Spartan Stadium Stadium on September 15, 2012, in East Lansing, Michigan.

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2013 BCS National Championship

Te'o went on the become a Heisman Trophy finalist, finishing second in the voting, and leading Notre Dame to its first appearance in the BCS championship.

He was asked again about his girlfriend on Jan. 3 prior to the BCS title game, saying: "This team is very special to me, and the guys on it have always been there for me, through the good times and the bad times. I rarely have a quiet time to myself because I always have somebody calling me, asking, `Do you want to go to the movies?' Coach is always calling me asking me, `Are you OK? Do you need anything?'"

Te'o and the Irish lost the title game to Alabama, 42-14 on Jan. 7. He has graduated and was set to begin preparing for the NFL combine and draft at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., this week.

Four days ago Te'o posted on his Twitter account: "Can't wait to start training with the guys! Workin to be the best! The grind continues! (hash)Future"

Te'o's statement also said: "It further pains me that the grief I felt and the sympathies expressed to me at the time of my grandmother's death in September were in any way deepened by what I believed to be another significant loss in my life.

"I am enormously grateful for the support of my family, friends and Notre Dame fans throughout this year. To think that I shared with them my happiness about my relationship and details that I thought to be true about her just makes me sick. I hope that people can understand how trying and confusing this whole experience has been.

"Fortunately, I have many wonderful things in my life, and I'm looking forward to putting this painful experience behind me as I focus on preparing for the NFL Draft."

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Notre Dame: Football Star Was 'Catfished' in Hoax

Notre Dame's athletic director and the star of its near-championship football team said the widely-reported death of the star's girlfriend from leukemia during the 2012 football season was apparently a hoax, and the player said he was duped by it as well.

Manti Te'o, who led the Fighting Irish to the BCS championship game this year and finished second for the Heisman Trophy, said in a statement today that he fell in love with a girl online last year who turned out not to be real.

The university's athletic director, Jack Swarbrick, said it has been investigating the "cruel hoax" since Te'o approached officials in late December to say he believed he had been tricked.

Private investigators hired by the university subsequently monitored online chatter by the alleged perpetrators, Swarbrick said, adding that he was shocked by the "casual cruelty" it revealed.

"They enjoyed the joke," Swarbrick said, comparing the ruse to the popular film "Catfish," in which filmmakers revealed a person at the other end of an online relationship was not who they said they were.

"While we still don't know all of the dimensions of this ... there are certain things that I feel confident we do know," Swarbrick said. "The first is that this was a very elaborate, very sophisticated hoax, perpetrated for reasons we don't understand."

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Te'o said during the season that his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, died of leukemia in September on the same day Te'o's grandmother died, triggering an outpouring of support for Te'o at Notre Dame and in the media.

"While my grandma passed away and you take, you know, the love of my life [Kekua]. The last thing she said to me was, 'I love you,'" Te'o said at the time, noting that he had talked to Kekua on the phone and by text message until her death.

Now, responding to a story first reported by the sports website Deadspin, Te'o has acknowledged that Kekua never existed. The website reported today that there were no records of a woman named Lennay Kekua anywhere.

Te'o denied that he was in on the hoax.

"This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online," Te'o said in a statement released this afternoon. "We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her."

Swarbrick said he expected Te'o to give his version of events at a public event soon, perhaps Thursday, and that he believed Te'o's representatives were planning to disclose the truth next week until today's story broke.

Deadspin reported that the image attached to Kekua's social media profiles, through which the pair interacted, was of another woman who has said she did not even know Te'o or know that her picture was being used. The website reported that it traced the profiles to a California man who is an acquaintance of Te'o and of the woman whose photo was stolen.

"To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating," Te'o said.

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France to stay in Mali until stability restored

BAMAKO/DUBAI (Reuters) - France pledged on Tuesday to keep troops in Mali until stability returned to the West African country, raising the specter of a long campaign against al Qaeda-linked rebels who held their ground despite a fifth day of air strikes.

Paris has poured hundreds of soldiers into Mali and carried out 50 bombing raids since Friday in the Islamist-controlled northern half of the country, which Western and regional states fear could become a base for terrorist attacks in Africa and Europe.

Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that, despite French air support, Malian forces had not been able to dislodge Islamist fighters from the central Malian towns of Konna or Diabaly, just 350 km (220 miles) northeast of Bamako.

A column of French armored vehicles rolled northward from the dusty riverside capital of Bamako towards rebel lines on Tuesday, the first major northward deployment of ground troops. A military official declined to comment on their objective.

Thousands of African soldiers are due to take over the offensive. Regional armies are scrambling to accelerate an operation which was initially not expected until September and has been brought forward by France's surprise bombing campaign aimed at stopping a rebel advance on a strategic town last week.

President Francois Hollande, on a visit to the United Arab Emirates during which he sought Gulf states' financial backing for the African-led mission, suggested France would retain a major role in its former colony for months to come.

"We have one goal. To ensure that when we leave, when we end our intervention, Mali is safe, has legitimate authorities, an electoral process and there are no more terrorists threatening its territory," Hollande told a news conference.

Paris has said it plans to deploy 2,500 soldiers to bolster the Malian army and work with the intervention force provided by West African states.

AFRICAN TROOPS

West African Defense chiefs met in Bamako on Tuesday to approve plans for the swift deployment of 3,300 regional troops, foreseen in a United Nations-backed intervention plan. After failing to reach a final agreement, they adjourned their talks until Wednesday.

Nigeria pledged to deploy soldiers within 24 hours, and Belgium said it was sending transport planes and helicopters to help, but West Africa's armies need time to become operational.

Mali's north, a vast and inhospitable area of desert and rugged mountains the size of Texas, was seized last year by an Islamist alliance combining al Qaeda's north African wing AQIM with splinter group MUJWA and the home-grown Ansar Dine rebels.

Any delay in following up on the French air bombardments of Islamist bases and fuel depots with a ground offensive could allow the insurgents to slip away into the desert and mountains, regroup and counter-attack.

The rebels, who French officials say are mobile and well armed, have shown they can hit back, dislodging government forces from Diabaly on Monday.

Residents said the town was still under Islamist control on Tuesday despite a number of air strikes that shook houses.

An eye witness near Segou, to the south, told Reuters he had seen 20 French Special Forces soldiers driving toward Diabaly.

In Konna, whose seizure on Thursday sparked French involvement, residents said Islamist fighters were camped just outside town. Army troops had also withdrawn after entering the town on Saturday.

Malians have largely welcomed the French intervention, having seen their army suffer a series of defeats by the rebels.

"With the arrival of the French, we have started to see the situation on the front evolve in our favor," said Aba Sanare, a resident of Bamako.

QUESTIONS OVER READINESS

Aboudou Toure Cheaka, a senior regional official in Bamako, said the West African troops would be on the ground in a week.

The original timetable for the 3,300-strong U.N.-sanctioned African force - to be backed by western logistics, money and intelligence services - did not initially foresee full deployment before September due to logistical constraints.

Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria and Guinea have all offered troops. Col. Mohammed Yerima, spokesman for Nigeria's Defense ministry, said the first 190 soldiers would be dispatched within 24 hours.

But Nigeria, which is due to lead the mission, has already cautioned that even if some troops arrive in Mali soon, their training and equipping will take more time.

Sub-Saharan Africa's top oil producer, which already has peacekeepers in Sudan's Darfur and is fighting a bloody and difficult insurgency at home against Islamist sect Boko Haram, could struggle to deliver on its troop commitment of 900 men.

One senior government adviser in Nigeria said the Mali deployment was stretching the country's military.

"The whole thing's a mess. We don't have any troops with experience of those extreme conditions, even of how to keep all that sand from ruining your equipment. And we're facing battle-hardened guys who live in those dunes," said the adviser, who asked not to be named.

FRENCH LINING UP SUPPORT

France, which has repeatedly said it has abandoned its role as policeman of its former African colonies, said on Monday that the U.S., Canada, Denmark and Germany had also offered logistical support.

Fabius has said Gulf Arab states would help the Mali campaign, while Belgium said on Tuesday it would send two C130 transport planes and two medical helicopters following a request from Paris.

A meeting of donors for the operation was expected to be held in Addis Ababa at the end of January.

Security experts have warned that the multinational intervention in Mali, couched in terms of a campaign by governments against "terrorism", could provoke a jihadist backlash against France and the West, and African allies.

U.S. officials have warned of links between AQIM, Boko Haram in Nigeria and al Shabaab Islamic militants fighting in Somalia.

Al Shabaab, which foiled a French effort at the weekend to rescue a French secret agent it was holding hostage, urged Muslims around the world to rise up against what it called "Christian" attacks against Islam.

"Our brothers in Mali, show patience and tolerance and you will win. War planes never liberate a land," Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, al Shabaab's spokesman, said on a rebel-run website.

U.S. officials said Washington was sharing information with French forces in Mali and considering providing logistics, surveillance and airlift capability.

"We have made a commitment that al Qaeda is not going to find any place to hide," U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters as he began a visit to Europe. Panetta later said the U.S. had no plans to send troops to Mali.

One U.S. military source said the haphazard nature of French involvement reminded him of the U.S. entry into Afghanistan.

"I don't know what the French endgame is for this," the source said. "Air strikes are fine, but pretty soon you run out of easy targets. Then what do you do? What do you do when they head up into the mountains?"

(Additional reporting by Elizabeth Pineau and Raissa Kasolowsky in Abu Dhabi, Felix Onuah in Abuja and Tim Cocks in Lagos, Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu, Michelle Nichols and Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations,; Richard Valdmanis in Dakar, Joe Bavier in Abidjan, Jan Vermeylen in Brussels; Writing by Pascal Fletcher, Daniel Flynn and David Lewis; editing by Richard Valdmanis, Giles Elgood and Will Waterman)

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