Corning will show off its third-generation Gorilla Glass at CES

It’s almost time for the Consumer Electronics Show, which means that it’s time for Corning (GLW) to announce a new generation of its super-tough Gorilla Glass. Corning said on Thursday that it would formally unveil Gorilla Glass 3 at CES next week and this year the company is promising “a new glass composition with durability enhancements” that will make your laptops, smartphones and tablets even tougher to crack in the coming year. Corning will also show off its new Optical Cables, which it describes as a fiber-based device-to-device connection product that will “significantly extend the data transmission range past the limits of copper-based cables.” The company’s full press release is posted below.
[More from BGR: Samsung confirms plan to begin inching away from Android]
Corning to Showcase Latest Glass Technologies for Consumer Electronics at CES 2013
[More from BGR: ‘iPhone 5S’ to reportedly launch by June with multiple color options and two different display sizes]
Introducing Corning® Gorilla® Glass 3 and Optical Cables by Corning
CORNING, N.Y. – Corning Incorporated (NYSE: GLW) today announced its plans for the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas next week. The Corning booth, #14813 Central Hall, will highlight the company’s newest specialty glass solutions and their benefits for today’s consumer electronics device trends.
Corning plans to introduce two new products at CES 2013: Corning® Gorilla® Glass 3, a new glass composition with durability enhancements; and Optical Cables by Corning, fiber-based, device-to-device connectivity solutions that significantly extend the data transmission range past the limits of copper-based cables. Full product details will be included in announcements planned for Monday, Jan. 7.
“This year at CES, Corning will demonstrate its industry leadership in specialty glass and fiber optic technologies with the introduction of two products designed to enhance and extend the capabilities of consumers’ favorite devices,” said Wendell P. Weeks, chairman, chief executive officer, and president. “These new innovations build on the increasingly important and continually evolving role of highly engineered glass technologies in delivering improved product performance and functionality through touch capabilities, protective cover glass, and device connectivity.”
In the Corning booth, experts will be on hand to discuss and present hourly demonstrations of the toughness of Gorilla Glass 3 as well as the connectivity and flexibility of Optical Cables by Corning. The booth will also showcase the benefits of Corning Gorilla Glass in larger format, multi-touch displays for education, entertainment and other applications.

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Zombies, Run! 5k Training leads Android Apps of the Week

Well, the world didn't end in 2012, but that's ok. Now you can combine your New Year's fitness resolution with a pretend zombie apocalypse thanks to our top app of the week, Zombies, Run! 5k Training. We've also got the latest app from the GO Launcher Dev Team, an interesting new way to watch YouTube videos, a visually awesome new task manager, and a brand new app that helps you hunt for the best wines in town. Here are the top Android apps to kick off 2013.

Zombies, Run! 5k Training ($0.99)

The original Zombies, Run! was a wonderful and popular fitness app. Using your headphones, it told a fairly well (though sometimes hilariously badly) acted original story that had you running away from the grotesque shambling hordes of the undead. 5k Training simply builds on the original with a new regimen and new stories, and while it can also be used by beginners, it's meant for more serious 5k marathon training. Maybe the gamer in me just couldn't resist the zombie aspect of this app, but the original was very successful, and this one surely will be too.

GO Media Manager (Free)

The creators of GO Launcher EX, an Android launching app that has been used by millions of people, have made a rather questionable move with this one. Essentially, they took some of the functionality from Go Launcher EX, removed it, modified it, and re-released it as an additional plug-in. The GO Media Manager makes it easier than ever to manage your music, pictures, and videos. Unfortunately this initial release has seen a lot of bugs and glitches, but knowing the devs, those will surely be ironed out sooner rather than later.

WinePoynt (Free)

Now this is a concept I can get behind. WinePoynt gives us a lovely and stylish way to search for all kinds of wine. Using GPS, it finds nearby wine shops for you. As you visit and rate them, the app will learn what your preferences are and provide more personalized recommendations in the future. Unfortunately, a lot of smaller stores are not yet in their database, so how well the app works depends a whole lot on where in the world you live. Still, the features and functions available here are quite impressive, and hopefully this app gets better and better.

9x9.tv (Free)

Here's a kind of odd one.9x9.tv seeks to turn the Internet (namely YouTube) into a more traditional TV watching experience. You can flip between YouTube channels just as you would TV channels, and the main channels always cycle out based on the time of day. It's a really cool idea, especially if you like to browse random videos and not just stick to your subscriptions, but the execution here needs some work. The app is very buggy, it's hard to find any specific content, and while randomly surfing channels is nice, I'm sure everyone would love some YouTube account/subscription support. Still, they get a high marks for innovation.

Zime (BETA) | To-do + Calendar (Free)

What better way to keep track of your 2013 resolutions than with this slick new task manager/calendar app? It's a promising new app from MobiSysteme, offering a lot of functionality that we're all familiar with, but showing it to us in a new way. The unique interface is great looking, and features like 3-D timelines show it off well. As with a lot of apps on this list, the initial release is a bit buggy, with certain items not saving on the right dates, which is kind of a deal breaker, but there is a great foundation here, and I can't wait to see where this app goes next.

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Huge gadget show gears up in Vegas

Think your high-definition TV is hot stuff — as sharp as it gets? At the biggest trade show in the Americas, which kicks off next week in Las Vegas, TV makers will be doing their best to convince you that HDTVs are old hat, and should make room for "Ultra HDTV."
It's the latest gambit from an industry struggling with a shift in consumer spending from TVs, PCs and single-purpose devices such as camcorders to small, portable do-it-all gadgets: smartphones and tablets. The Consumer Electronics Association estimates that device shipments to U.S. buyers fell 5 percent in dollar terms last year excluding smartphones and tablets, but rose 6 percent to $207 billion if you include those categories.
The trends suggest that the International CES (formerly the Consumer Electronics Show) is losing its stature as a start-of-the-year showcase for the gadgets that consumers will buy over the next 12 months. It started out as a venue for the TV and stereo industries. Later, PCs joined the party.
But over the last few years, TVs and PCs have declined in importance as portable gadgets have risen and CES hasn't kept pace. It's not a major venue for phone and tablet launches, though some new models will likely see the light of day there when the show floor opens on Tuesday. The biggest trendsetter in mobile gadgets industry, Apple Inc., stays away, as it shuns all events it doesn't organize itself.
Apple rival Microsoft Corp. has also scaled back its patronage of the show. For the first time since 1999, Microsoft's CEO won't be delivering the kick-off keynote. Qualcomm Inc. has taken over the podium. It's an important maker of chips that go into cellphones, but not a household name.
None of this seems to matter much to the industry people who go to the show, which is set to be bigger than ever, at least in terms of floor space.
Gary Shapiro the CEO of the organizing Consumer Electronics Association, expects attendance close to the 156,000 people who turned out last year. That's pretty much at capacity for Las Vegas, which has about 150,000 hotel rooms. The show doesn't welcome gawkers: the attendees are executives, purchasing managers, engineers, marketers, journalists and others with connections to the industry.
"We don't want to be over 160,000," Shapiro said in an interview. "We do everything we can not to be too crowded."
Nor do the shifting winds of the technology industry seem to matter much to exhibitors. Though some big names are scaling back or missing, there are many smaller companies clamoring for booth space and a spot in the limelight for a few days. For example, while Apple doesn't have an official presence at the show, there will be 500 companies displaying Apple accessories in the "iLounge Pavilion."
Overall, the CEA sold a record 1.9 million square feet of floor space (the equivalent of 33 football fields) for this year's show.
These are some of the themes that will be in evidence next week:
___ SHARPER TVs
Ultra HDTVs have four times the resolution of HDTVs. While this sounds extreme and unnecessary, you've probably already been exposed to projections at this resolution, because it's used in digital movie theaters. Sony, LG, Westinghouse and others will be at the show with huge flat-panel TVs that bring that experience home, if you have a spare $20,000 or so.
While the sets are eye-catching, they will likely be niche products for years to come, if they ever catch on. They have to be really big — more than 60 inches, measured diagonally — to make the extra resolution really count. Also, there's no easy way to get movies in UHDTV resolution.
"While there's going to be a lot of buzz around Ultra HDTV, we really think what's going to be relevant to consumers at the show is the continued evolution of 3D TVs and Internet-connected TVs," said Kumu Puri, senior executive with consulting firm Accenture's Electronics & High-Tech group.
___ BIGGER PHONES
Unlike TVs, new phones are launched throughout the year, so CES isn't much of a bellwether for phone trends. But this year, reports point to several super-sized smartphones, with screen bigger than five inches diagonally, making their debut at the show. These phones are so big they can be awkward to hold to the ear, but Samsung's Galaxy Note series has shown that there's a market for them. Wags call them "phablets" because they're almost tablet-sized.
___ ACROBATIC PCs
Microsoft launched Windows 8 in October, in an attempt to make the PC work more like a tablet. PC makers obliged, with a slew of machines that blend the boundaries. They have touch screens that twist, fold back or detach from the keyboard. None of these seems to be a standout hit so far, but we can expect more experiments to be revealed at the show.
"All the PC manufacturers recognize that they have to do things differently," Accenture's Puri said.
___ ATTENTIVE COMPUTING
CES has been a showcase in recent years for technologies that free users from keyboards, mice and buttons. Instead, they rely on cameras and other sophisticated sensors to track the user and interpret gestures and eye movements. Microsoft's motion-tracking add-on for the Xbox 360 console, the Kinect, has introduced this type of technology to the living room. Startups and big TV makers are now looking to take it further.
For example, Tobii Technology, a Swedish company, will be at the show to demonstrate "the world's first gaze interaction computer peripheral" — basically a camera that tracks where the user is looking on the screen, potentially replacing the mouse.
PointGrab, an Israeli startup, will be showing off software that lets a regular laptop webcam interpret hand movements in the air in front of it.
Assaf Gad, head of marketing at PointGrab, said that CES is usually full of hopeful companies with speculative interaction technologies, "but this year, you can actually see real devices."

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Facebook updates Messenger app to support voice messages

Facebook (FB) on Thursday released an update to its Messenger app on Android and iOS that will help the company further compete with services like Google Voice and Skype. The update allows users to send short voice messages, up to a minute in length, to one another using the application, similar to popular apps Voxer and HeyTell. Additionally, Facebook is allowing Canadian iOS users to make free calls using the application with a Wi-Fi or cellular data connection, The Verge reported. It is speculated that if testing goes well, the company may bring the feature to Europe and the United States.

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U.S. ends long Google probe with only mild reprimand

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a major victory for Google Inc, U.S. regulators on Thursday ended their investigation into the giant Internet company and concluded that it had not manipulated its Web search results to hurt rivals.
The Federal Trade Commission did, however, win promises from Google that it would end the practice of "scraping" reviews and other data from rivals' websites for its own products, and to allow advertisers to export data to independently evaluate advertising campaigns.
Google also agreed to no longer request sales bans when suing companies which infringe on patents that are essential to ensuring interoperability, also known as standard essential patents, the FTC said on Thursday.
Microsoft Corp and other Google competitors have pressed the FTC to bring a broad antitrust case against Google similar to the sweeping Justice Department litigation against Microsoft in the 1990s.
Meanwhile smaller Internet companies such as Nextag have complained about Google tweaking its Web search results to give prominence to its own products, pushing down competitors' rankings and making them more difficult for customers to find.
At a press conference, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz anticipated criticism of the agency's decision to not further pursue Google on the so-called subject of search bias.
"Even though people would like us to bring a big search bias case, the facts aren't there," he said.
"The changes Google have agreed to make ensure that consumers continue to reap the benefits of competition in the online marketplace and in the market for innovative wireless devices they enjoy," said Leibowitz.
The commission voted 4 to 1 to settle the patent investigation into Google's injunction requests. It voted 5 to 0 to end the probe of Google's search practices.
The news had little impact on Google shares, which closed up 42 cents at $723.67, as most investors had expected the FTC probe to conclude without inflicting major damage.
"I never saw any real likelihood that the feds were going to insert themselves between one of the most popular brands in the world and the constituency that adores it," said Whit Andrews, an analyst for Gartner Inc.
RIVALS DISAPPOINTED
Yelp, which operates the social networking/user review website yelp.com, had complained about scraped reviews, and said it was disappointed with the result of the FTC probe.
"The closure of the commission's investigation into search bias by Google without action ... represents a missed opportunity to protect innovation in the Internet economy," wrote Yelp spokesman Vince Sollitto in an email. "We look for the regulatory bodies continuing their investigation to have greater success."
Microsoft had no immediate comment, but Dave Heiner, its deputy general counsel, complained in a blog post on Wednesday about "Google's misconduct," specifically blocking a fully featured YouTube, which Google owns, from the Windows Phone.
Gary Reback, who represents a group of Google's critics including Nextag, said he thought the investigation was inadequate since the FTC failed to respond to his clients' assertions that they had been hurt by Google and asked few questions in its civil subpoenas.
"They talked about how thorough and exhaustive the investigation was but that's really rubbish," said Reback, who is with the law firm Carr & Ferrell LLP and is best known for his work against Microsoft in the 1990s. "I've never seen anything as shallow and incomplete as this was."
Microsoft was embroiled in antitrust probes and litigation from 1990 when the FTC began an investigation until 2011, when the final consent decree finally expired.
Leibowitz defended the commission's investigation into Google, saying the agency had scoured through some 9 million pages of documents and taken sworn testimony from key Google executives. "This was an incredibly thorough and careful investigation by the commission, and the outcome is a strong and enforceable set of agreements," he said.
Google's David Drummond, the company's chief legal officer, said the FTC announcement on Thursday meant that "Google's services are good for users and good for competition."
Thomas Rosch, who is leaving the commission this month, suggested the investigation fell short.
"After promising an elephant more than a year ago, the commission instead has brought forth a couple of mice," said Rosch, a Republican.
The FTC broke with its usual practice of requiring a consent decree to settle an investigation. Instead it allowed Google to write a letter pledging to implement the agreed-upon changes in the search portion of the probe.
That prompted some sharp questions about whether Google would live up to its pact.
"I have no reason to think that Google won't honor their commitment; I think they will," said Leibowitz, noting financial penalties if Google failed to do so.
One Google competitor seemed to think the FTC agreement with Google would be a small boon to competitors.
"The concessions that the FTC extracted on review scraping, patents, and data are real, but not game changers by any means," said Oren Etzioni, co-founder of Decide.com, a product website that advises shoppers when prices may change or new versions of gadgets may come out.
Some of Google's critics, anticipating a weak conclusion to the FTC's investigation, said in December that they may be ready to take their grievances to the Justice Department.
The European Union, based in Brussels, is conducting a parallel probe of Google. It announced on December 18 that it was giving the company a month to come up with proposals to resolve its probe.
The European Commission has been examining informal settlement proposals from Google since July but has not sought feedback from the complainants, suggesting it is not convinced by what Google has put on the table so far.
Google is also being looked at by a group of state attorneys general, led by Texas.
In August, Google was forced to pay $22.5 million to settle charges it bypassed the privacy settings of customers using Apple Inc's Safari browser. The practice was in violation of a 2011 consent decree with the FTC over a botched rollout of the now defunct social network Buzz.

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Argentina to court: revert order on debt holdouts

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentina is asking a US appeals court to reverse an order for the country to pay $1.33 billion to "holdout" creditors who refused to join two swaps for the country's defaulted debt.
Argentine government lawyers said in papers filed late Friday that the order violates the country's sovereignty. The lawyers said the order also threatens service on at least $24 billion of the county's restructured sovereign debt, impairs the rights of third parties and puts global debt markets at risk.
"The Amended Injunctions have no basis in law, are inequitable, and threaten to wreak havoc on countless innocent third parties, which have already suffered losses due to the plunge in their bonds' value provoked by the insecurity that the Amended Injunctions have created in the market for Argentina's New York law-governed bonds," the briefing said.
"This harm to private and sovereign creditors, as well as to New York law and New York as a place to do business, will only grow if the Amended Injunctions are affirmed. "
The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ordered the country on Oct. 26 to pay the holdouts an equal amount whenever it makes payments on other debt that has been restructured since the country's economic collapse 11 years ago.
It agreed with U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa, who ruled that with more than $40 billion in foreign reserves, Argentina can afford to pay. The ruling gave Argentina a difficult choice: pay all bondholders equally, or pay none of them and risk going into default.
The court then returned the case to Griesa who ordered Argentina to pay the $1.33 billion into escrow for holders of its defaulted debt and banned banks and other third parties from intervening. Griesa based his ruling on the principle of "pari passu," or equal footing, which says debtors can't pick and choose between creditors.
President Cristina Fernandez called Griesa's ruling "judicial colonialism," and Argentina sidestepped the impending economic chaos when the order was suspended by the appeals court on Nov. 28.
But just the threat of the payment deadline set by Griesa had harsh outcomes. In the week after he issued his order, the cost of maintaining Argentina's overall debt soared in trading on U.S. and European bond markets and the cost of insuring those debts spiked.
"A court can arguably enjoin a foreign state from engaging in a commercial activity within the United States. But it cannot issue an order to force or preclude a foreign sovereign to act or not act within the limits of that sovereign's own territory," Argentina's brief said.
"By dictating to Argentina that it cannot pay moneys it owes to the exchange bondholders in a funds transfer in its own country, and commanding that it make a payment (including via escrow) to holdout creditors that it is precluded from paying under its own laws, the Amended Injunctions violate this fundamental principle."
Argentina, however, said it's willing to make concessions. To end the lengthy dispute, government lawyers said the country is willing to ask Congress to give holdout creditors the same treatment as those who joined a 2010 debt swap.
"The only definitive and equitable solution to pari passu claims that would bring legal and economic certainty is to treat plaintiffs and all other similarly situated claimants equitably on the same terms as participants in (Argentina's) 2010 Exchange Offer," the brief said.
The new arguments are part of the final stage of Argentina's legal battle with NML Capital Ltd., the investment fund that brought the case and that specializes in suing over unpaid sovereign debts.
The US government filed an "amicus," or friends of the court brief, late Friday backing Argentina's request for a rehearing in the case citing that the appeals court order affects US-Argentina relations, threatens the solution of future debt crises and blocks the legal immunity given to a sovereign country. It also says that it potentially blemishes the role of New York as financial center.
Argentina tarnished its reputation worldwide by engaging in the biggest sovereign debt default in history a decade ago. Since then, the government has restructured about 92 percent of its world record $95 billion debt default.
But Fernandez refuses to pay the holdouts calling NML Capital and others "vulture funds" for buying debt for pennies on the dollar in 2002, when Argentina's economy was in ruins and now wanting to collect in full.
The fiery, center-left leader says it was their loss for refusing two opportunities to swap defaulted bonds for new, less valuable bonds that the state has reliably paid since 2005.
NML Capital fund, run by billionaire Paul Singer and other plaintiffs, slammed Argentina's arguments late on Friday.
"With more than $43 billion in foreign currency reserves and tens of billions of dollars in additional resources, Argentina has the overwhelming capacity to pay the $1.3 billion it owes in this matter," Peter Truell, spokesman for NML's parent company Elliott Management Corp., told the Associated Press in e-mail.
"Today's filing by the Republic once again demonstrates Argentina's irrational persistence in evading its contractual obligations and the orders of US courts."
Oral arguments in the case are scheduled for Feb. 27 before the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.

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Venezuela VP in Cuba to visit ailing Chavez

HAVANA (AP) — Venezuela's vice president arrived in Havana on Saturday in a sudden and unexpected trip to visit President Hugo Chavez as he recovers from cancer surgery.
Communist Party newspaper Granma published online a photo of a smiling Vice President Nicolas Maduro being greeted at the airport in the Cuban capital by the island's foreign minister, Bruno Rodriguez.
"From there, (Maduro) went directly to the hospital where President Hugo Chavez Frias is receiving treatment to greet his family members and Venezuelan Science and Technology Minister Jorge Arreaza Monserrat, and to discuss with doctors the adequate moment to visit the President the same day," the paper said.
Granma added that Maduro was accompanied by Venezuelan Attorney General Cilia Flores.
The previous night in Caracas, Venezuela, Maduro did not specify how long he would be away but said Energy Minister Hector Navarro would be in charge of government affairs in the meantime. Maduro's announcement came at the end of a long speech at the inauguration of a state governor, and he offered no information on the purpose of his visit beyond seeing Chavez.
In a speech Saturday, Venezuela's National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello said only that Maduro went to Cuba to visit with Chavez and urge him "to follow his treatment." Venezuelan press officials in Caracas said they had no additional information Saturday.
Maduro's trip comes amid growing uncertainty about Chavez's health.
The Venezuelan leader has not been seen or heard from since undergoing his fourth cancer-related surgery Dec. 11, and government officials have said he might not return in time for his scheduled Jan. 10 inauguration for a new six-year term. There have been no updates on Chavez's condition since Maduro announced Monday night that he had received a phone call from the president who was up and walking.
Venezuela's opposition criticized Maduro for what they said was a lack of transparency surrounding Chavez's health.
"What I still don't understand is who is president," Lawmaker Alfonso Marquina said. "Who is governing the country now? As for the purpose of this sudden and improvised trip, only the national government knows."
Maduro is the highest ranking Venezuelan official to visit Chavez since the surgery. Bolivian President Evo Morales traveled to Cuba last weekend in a quick trip that only added to the uncertainty surrounding Chavez's condition. Morales has not commented publicly on his visit or even confirmed that he saw Chavez while he was there.
Before leaving for Cuba, Chavez acknowledged the precariousness of his situation and designated Maduro as his successor, telling supporters they should vote for the vice president if a new presidential election was necessary. Although Chavez has delegated some administrative powers to Maduro, he did not leave the vice president officially in charge of the presidency.
Venezuela's Democratic Unity bloc of opposition parties suggested Saturday it was time for the government to declare the president temporarily absent from power.
"They are trying to hide what every day is a fact: The government does not want to recognize that there is a temporary absence of the president from his duties," the bloc said in a statement.
On Friday morning, Maduro read a New Year message from Chavez to Venezuelan troops, though it was unclear when the president composed it.
"I have had to battle again for my health," Chavez said in the message. He expressed "complete faith in the commitment and loyalty that the revolutionary armed forces are showing me in this very complicated and difficult moment."
A group of opposition candidates demanded Friday that Maduro provide an official medical report on Chavez's health. Lawmaker Dinorah Figuera said the country needs "a medical report from those who are responsible for the diagnosis, evaluation and treatment of the president."
"The Venezuelan people deserve official and institutional information," Figuera told Venezuelan media.
A legal fight is brewing over what should happen if Chavez, who was re-elected in October, cannot return in time for the inauguration before the National Assembly.
National Assembly Diosdado Cabello insisted Monday that Venezuela's constitution allows the president to take the oath before the Supreme Court at any time if he cannot do it before the legislature on Jan. 10.
Opposition leaders argue the constitution requires that new elections be held within 30 days if Chavez cannot take office Jan. 10. They have criticized the confusion over the inauguration as the latest example of the Chavez government's disdain for democratic rule of law and have demanded clarity on whether the president is fit to govern.

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AP's Honduras correspondent navigates violent land

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Every Saturday morning, one of my taxi drivers pays about $12 for the right to park his cab near a hospital, about two blocks from a police station.
But it's not the government that's charging.
An unidentified man pulls up in a large SUV, usually brandishing an AK-47, and accepts an envelope of cash without saying a word. Jose and nine other drivers who pay the extortionists estimate that it amounts to more than $500 a year to park on public property. During Christmas, the cabbies dish out another $500 each in holiday "bonuses."
Meanwhile, Jose pays the city $30 a year for his taxi license.
"Who do you think is really in charge here?" Jose asked me.
It is an interesting question, one I have been trying to answer since I arrived here a year ago as a correspondent for The Associated Press. Is the government in charge? The drug traffickers? The gangs? This curious capital of 1.3 million people is a lawless place, but it does seem to have its own set of unwritten rules for living with the daily dangers.
Jose, who did not want his last name used for fear of reprisals, says his extortionists are from "18th Street," a powerful gang that started in U.S. prisons. The taxi drivers don't bother to report the crime, he says, because they suspect police are involved in the racket. In the first six months of 2012, 51 taxi drivers were killed in Tegucigalpa — most of them, Jose's colleagues believe, for failing to pay extortionists.
When I moved to Tegucigalpa last March several friends back home in Spain wanted to know why. The big story was in Egypt, Libya and Syria; what was I planning to do on the other side of the globe? "Bear witness," I said, "to the most violent place in the world, to a country in crisis."
I am the only foreign correspondent here, with no press pack to consult on questions of security, or to rely on for safety in numbers. I fall back on instincts honed in war zones, but they are not always sufficient when you are covering a failing state.
When you are in the trenches of Libya, you generally know where the shooting comes from. But in Honduras, you never know where danger lurks.
Three weeks after I arrived, I attended a ceremony in the capital where U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Brownfield delivered 30 motorcycles to President Porfirio Lobo to help Honduras fight crime. A neighborhood leader, however, had complained to me that the narcos had bribed some police officers to look the other way. I asked the officials if they weren't afraid the motorcycles would end up in the hands of the bad guys.
I got no answer. Instead a Honduran reporter wrapped his arm around my shoulder and whispered, "We don't ask questions like that here." If I wanted to survive in Honduras, he said, "Keep a low profile."
More than two dozen Honduran journalists have been killed in the last two years. Some reporters carry weapons to protect themselves, others use the armed guards that President Lobo offered after a prominent Honduran radio journalist was assassinated last May — reportedly in retaliation for a government crackdown on cartels.
It is not hard to become a fatality. A few months ago, I interviewed a lawyer, Antonio Trejo, who was defending the peasants of Aguan Valley in a land dispute against agribusiness tycoon Miguel Facusse, one of the most powerful men in the country. Trejo had warned repeatedly that he would be killed for helping the campesinos. Two days after I interviewed him, he was shot six times as he was leaving church by two men on a motorcycle.
In August, I took a walk on a Sunday with a couple of friends in a sad dilapidated park — one of only two in the city. I got a call on my iPhone. I stepped away from friends and began to walk as I talked, as you would in a normal city, a normal park. Suddenly two teenagers approached me, asking first for a cigarette, then for the phone. I hung up, put the phone in my pocket and shouted over to my friends, who helped me chase the young men away — once we realized they weren't armed.
But I learned my lesson. Unwritten rule: Do not walk around talking on an iPhone, which costs about three times a monthly salary in Honduras. And forget the park.
Like most Hondurans who can afford it, my family and I live behind high gated walls with a guard out front. After the park episode, I gave up my morning ritual of newspapers and espresso at an outdoor cafe. I don't go out at night.
In the daytime, I use trusted drivers like Jose to guide me through Tegucigalpa's chaotic streets, past its barbed-wire fences, mounds of garbage and packs of dogs. I keep the tinted windows up, the doors locked, and we don't stop at the lights, so we won't get carjacked.
I vary my routes. I try not to fall victim to the permanent sense of danger that hangs over the capital, where the conversation is invariably about whose relative was just killed, or what atrocity happened on the corner. Yet I constantly check the rear and side mirrors of Jose's car for approaching motorcycles. Honduras has the world's highest murder rate, and paid gunmen almost always travel by motorcycle to make a quick getaway through impossible traffic.
The violence is a stark contrast to the friendly feel of a land where many have a Caribbean attitude about life, happy and easygoing. Once you leave the cities, the landscape is amazing — wild, healthy, and savage, from the waterfalls of La Tigra National park, just half an hour from the capital, to the islands of the Caribbean and the world's second largest coral reef.
___
Our babysitter, Wendy, sells Avon products door-to-door to make extra money after her child's father disappeared on his clandestine journey to the U.S. to find work.
Last month, she was on her way to deposit her Avon earnings in the bank when a robber pointed a knife at her waist and told her to hand over the cash. He took 5,000 lempiras — about $250 — which was everything she had earned, including the money she owed Avon.
Again last week, Wendy encountered thieves, this time as she left my house about 7:30 p.m. Half a block away, she passed a group of basketball players just as three gunmen threw them up against a wall, stealing their money and phones. "They looked like police," she said of the gunmen.
Two days later, a neighbor in her poor barrio of ramshackle huts and dirt roads was robbed by an armed drug addict. The neighbor escaped, went home for his own gun and returned to kill the drug addict. "Police thanked him for the favor," Wendy said.
___
My best friend here is a man named German who studied art and opened a tattoo parlor with a business partner. They were talented and developed a good clientele, particularly among youths looking to leave the street gangs and get rid of the signature tattoos. German learned how to convert numbers such as 18 into pirate ships, and to turn other gang symbols into random designs. He saw this as a kind of social service, removing a stigma from the skin of a gangster who wanted to return to civilian life, and he asked to borrow a camera of mine to take pictures of their work.
Some days later, German's partner was walking home when a black car drew near. He tried to run until the front-seat passenger screamed at him to halt. "Get in and put this on," the man said, handing him a black hood.
They took him to a dark room where they removed the hood and claimed he spied on them. They tortured him for several hours before letting him go, with a broken rib.
My friend closed his shop and moved to a new house. He knows they are looking for him.
German comes from a family of means. Here, violence is democratic.
___
Honduran officials receive aid from the U.S. to fight the trafficking of cocaine headed for the U.S. market. The country has 640 kilometers (400 miles) of northern Caribbean coastline, with plenty of tree cover and great uninhabited stretches for moving drugs. It is flanked by the port town of Puerto Lempira in the east and San Pedro Sula in the west.
While Hondurans blame their police for much of the crime, police say they are overwhelmed and outgunned by the drug traffickers and criminals. AP photographer Esteban Felix and I decided to see this for ourselves, and rode with police in San Pedro Sula, the country's largest and wealthiest city.
In one night, we saw the bodies of two bus drivers who had been killed for refusing to pay a cut to gangs, a police officer executed on a highway with a single shot to the head, and three people shot dead in a pool hall for what was described as "a settling of accounts."
The hospital emergency room looked like a scene out of a civil war, with mop-wielding orderlies failing to keep up with the blood pooling on the floor.
The owner of the bus company urged his employees to remove the drivers' bodies and collect the fares from the bloodied bus before police did. Once again, I made the mistake of asking a question, this time of the owner of the bus company. He turned in anger and ordered me not to publish what I had seen, while asking me repeatedly, "Where are you staying?"
Needless to say, I did not stay the night in San Pedro Sula.
I returned to the capital, which, despite the violence, has become my home. My two-year-old daughter can say Tegucigalpa — which is not easy. And every time she sees the flag, she waves and says "Honduras," as she was taught in her preschool.
Somehow, we already belong to this country. After 10 months living here, I have learned the rules of survival. If Jose pays his weekly extortion fee, chances are he'll survive.
And since I'm usually sitting in the passenger seat, chances are so will I.

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Brazil debates treatment options in crack epidemic

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Bobo has a method: Cocaine gets him through the day, when he cruises with a wheelbarrow around a slum on Rio's west side, sorting through trash for recyclables to sell. At night, he turns the day's profit into crack.
"Sometimes I don't sleep at all; I'm up 24 hours," says Bobo, a former soldier who doesn't use his given name for safety reasons. "I work to support my addiction, but I only use crack at night. That drug takes my mind away. I lose all notion of what I'm doing."
Bobo says balancing crack with cocaine keeps him working and sane. On the shantytown's streets, life can be hell: Addicts unable to strike Bobo's precarious balance use crack day and night, begging, stealing, prostituting themselves, and picking through trash to make enough for the next hit. For them, there's no going home, no job, nothing but the drug.
With a boom in crack use over the past decade, Brazilian authorities are struggling to stop the drug's spread, sparking a debate over the legality and efficiency of forcibly interning users. Brazil today is the world's largest consumer of both cocaine and its crack derivative, according to the Federal University of Sao Paolo. About 6 million adults, or 3 percent of Brazilians, have tried cocaine in some form.
Rio de Janeiro has taken the lead in trying to help the burgeoning number of users with an approach that city leaders call proactive, but critics pan as unnecessarily aggressive. As of May 2011, users living in the streets have been scooped up in pre-dawn raids by teams led by the city's welfare department in conjunction with police and health care workers. By Dec. 5, 582 people had been picked up, including 734 children.
The sight is gut-wrenching. While some people go meekly, many fight, cry, scream out in desperation in their altered states. Once they're gone, their ratty mattresses, pans, sweaters and few other possessions are swept up by a garbage removal company.
Adults can't be forced to stay in treatment, and most leave the shelters within three days. But children are kept in treatment against their will or returned to parents if they have a family. In December, 119 children were being held in specialized treatment units.
Demand for crack has boomed in recent years and open-air "cracolandias," or "crack lands," popped up in the urban centers of Rio and Sao Paulo, with hundreds of users gathering to smoke the drug. The federal government announced in early 2012 that more than $2 billion would be spent to fight the epidemic, allotting money to train health care workers, buy thousands of hospital and shelter beds, and create transitional centers for recovering users.
Mobile street units stationed near cracolandias are among the most important and visible aspects of the government's approach. The units, housed in metal containers, bring doctors, nurses, therapists and social workers to the areas where users concentrate. Slowly, by offering health care and other help, the units' workers gain the trust of users and refer them to treatment centers.
Studies suggest the approach can work: 47 percent of the crack users surveyed in Sao Paulo said they'd welcome treatment, according to the Federal University of Sao Paulo study.
Ethel Vieira, a psychologist on the raid team, thinks their persistence is paying off.
"Initially, they'd run away, react aggressively, throw rocks," she said of users. "Now most of them understand our intention is to help, to give them a chance to leave the street and to connect with the public health network."
Human rights groups object to the forced commitment of children, saying treatment delivered against the will of patients is ineffective. They also oppose the sweeps, which they describe as violent.
"There are legal procedures that must be followed and that are not being followed. This goes against the law and is unconstitutional," Margarida Pressburguer, head of the Human Rights Commission for Brazil's Association of Attorneys, said during a debate last year.
Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes suggested in October that the city would start forcing adults into treatment. "A crack addict isn't capable of making decisions," Paes said from the Jacarezinho shantytown in the week after police stormed the area and seized control of what was then Rio's largest cracolandia.
The Rio state Attorney General's Office responded by telling city officials "the compulsory removal of adults living in the streets has no legal foundation." It said adults can be committed only when they become a danger to themselves or others and outpatient treatment options have run out.
"They give us a place to sleep, food, clothes, everything," said Bobo. "I've been picked up by the city and I liked it. They are doing this for our good."
But even as Bobo endorsed the city's approach, a friend was stepping over to the drug stand for more cocaine. Bobo asked for $5 worth of drugs — cocaine for now, crack for later. Then he rolled up a bill and dumped a small mound of white powder in his palm for snorting.
With a nose full of cocaine, he set off, ready for another day.

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President's brother speaks out on Colombia talks

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A brother of Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has revealed that the country's largest guerrilla group had initially proposed to hold peace talks within Colombia or in neighboring Venezuela, rather than in Cuba.
Enrique Santos said in an article published in the newspaper El Espectador on Sunday that the government's team had insisted that the talks not be held in Colombia.
"We decided on Cuba for security and above all because it guaranteed confidentiality," Santos wrote in the article.
Representatives of the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, began discussions in Havana on Nov. 19 seeking a deal to end the country's decades-old conflict. They currently are taking a holiday break and are to resume talks on Jan. 14.
Santos, a journalist and former director of the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, is not a member of the team involved in the current talks, though he has acted as an adviser to the government negotiators.
He revealed details of earlier discussions with the rebels starting in February 2011. He said he has been involved "in an irreversible way in this process."
Santos said that one especially complicated matter was getting one of the rebel leaders, Jaime Alberto Parra Rodriguez, to make the trip to Cuba for those initial discussions. Santos said the rebels were distrustful of the plans to shuttle away Parra, who is better known by the nom-de-guerre Mauricio Jaramillo or the nickname "El Medico."
"It was very hard to convince the FARC to ... accept putting (Parra) on a helicopter supplied by the state," Santos wrote. "At the time of picking him up, he appeared guarded by more than 50 men armed to the teeth. In the end there was crying by women guerrillas and a farewell ceremony. That was the first big achievement: getting Jaramillo to Havana. That process lasted nearly a year."
Santos said he and others arrived in Havana on Feb. 23, 2011, ahead of their first contacts with the guerrillas, and that after sitting together about 70 times, they finally signed a preliminary accord in August 2012 to launch the peace talks. Until they reached that point, Santos said, "various times we were on the verge of breaking off" the discussions.

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