Soccer-Coach Fernandez leaves bottom club Nancy

PARIS, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Coach Jean Fernandez has left Ligue 1 basement side Nancy after 18 months in charge, the French club said on Friday.
"On Thursday, Jean Fernandez told the players and the management he was leaving the club," Nancy said on their website (www.asnl.net).
The club's academy director, Patrick Gabriel, would serve as interim coach for Saturday's home league game against Lille, they said.
The 58-year-old Fernandez, a former Marseille coach, joined Nancy in June 2011 from Auxerre, a club he managed to qualify for the Champions League group stage in 2010-11 despite modest resources. His success brought him the award for best coach in 2010.
Nancy, who have won only their league opener this term, are on 11 points from 19 games, eight points from safety.
The club have also been experiencing financial troubles and said they were willing to get rid of up to five players in order to cut their deficit.

Read More..

Soccer-Aguero's comeback still a week away, says Mancini

LONDON, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Manchester City striker Sergio Aguero will miss Sunday's match against Arsenal and faces another week on the sidelines with a hamstring injury, manager Roberto Mancini said on Friday.
The 24-year-old Argentine, who is City's joint top-scorer this season with 10 goals, picked up the injury in City's 3-0 win over Stoke City on New Year's Day and was forced to sit out their FA Cup victory over Watford last weekend.
"Sergio won't be available for at least another week," Mancini told reporters.
"He should make the game against Fulham but we won't risk him against Arsenal. He should be ready by next weekend."
Premier League champions City, who will be able to call on left back Aleksandar Kolarov after a four-week injury absence, have not won at Arsenal in 37 years.
"We want to end this run but it will be very difficult because Arsenal are a very good team," Mancini said.
"We are missing a number of important players but we can go there and come away with a good result. We are seven points behind United at present but I don't feel we deserve to be so many points behind.
"Our strikers have been coming back into form again and scoring goals and we will need them to keep doing that. Sometimes you go through a period when you don't score so many but we have scored 10 in our last three games so things are improving.

Read More..

Soccer-Milito could return for Inter after injury

ROME, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Diego Milito could return for Inter Milan as they look to get their Italian title challenge back on track against struggling Pescara on Saturday (1945 GMT).
The Argentine striker missed Inter's 3-1 defeat at Udinese last week due to a knee injury but manager Andrea Stramaccioni said on Friday that he was well again.
"Milito has recovered; he has a small problem with his knee that causes him a bit pain but isn't a serious medical problem," said the Inter coach at Friday's pre-match news conference.
Inter are fifth in Serie A on 35 points, nine behind leaders Juventus, after picking up one point in their last three games.

Read More..

Soccer-Wenger optimistic over Walcott's Arsenal future

LONDON, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said he was "optimistic" that England international Theo Walcott will commit his long-term future to the London club and sign a new deal.
Barely a week goes by without the Frenchman being asked whether progress has been made on persuading top scorer Walcott to stay at the Emirates Stadium.
Walcott, who has hit eight Premier League goals this campaign, is out of contract at the end of the season,
"Discussions progress smoothly but slowly. We are on a good road but in this situation, as long as nothing is signed, you are cautious," Wenger told a news conference on Friday.
"But I am optimistic we will get to a happy conclusion. I was optimistic last week, but I am a bit more optimistic this week."
Walcott has made no secret of his desire to switch from the wing to play in the centre forward role and has revelled in that position in recent games, including netting a dazzling hat-trick in the 7-3 win over Newcastle United in late December.
Wenger said any new deal would not revolve around Walcott being assured of playing as a central striker, although he did envisage him getting more time in that role.
"No, it is not linked with that," he said. "I believe that Theo can have a preference maybe to play through the middle but first of all he never made a condition of that to extend his contract, because certainly I would not accept it.
"Secondly he was always happier when he plays, whether it is on the flank or through the middle. That has no influence at all. But I see him playing more up front, yes."
Arsenal host second-placed Manchester City on Sunday (1600) with striker Olivier Giroud rated as "50-50" to play by Wenger after suffering a cut knee in the FA Cup tie with Swansea last weekend.
Sixth-placed Arsenal are unbeaten in five league games but Wenger said his side needed "another positive result in a big game" to maintain pursuit of the clubs above them.
"We know this a vital period for us," he said. "We are on a positive run. We still lack a bit of confidence in some situations and I feel our team will be very dangerous if we have full confidence.

Read More..

"GameStick" Will Be the Size of a USB Memory Stick, Plug into Your TV

When the Ouya game console (scheduled to launch in April) made headlines last year, it was for three reasons. One, its size and price -- the $99 box, which plugs into a TV, is the size of a Rubik's cube. Two, its choice of operating system -- it runs the same Android OS which powers smartphones and tablets. And three -- its rise to fame on Kickstarter, where it shattered records and received millions of dollars in funding not from venture capitalists, but from gamers who wanted to see it made.
Now GameStick, "The Most Portable TV Games Console Ever Created," is preparing to make a name for itself in exactly the same ways. Except that in some of them, it surpasses the Ouya.
Not even a set-top box
Up to this point, pretty much all home game consoles have been a box that sits on your shelf and plugs in to your TV. (Some PCs even do this these days.)
The GameStick, on the other hand, is about the size of a USB memory stick or a tube of lip balm. It plugs into a TV's HDMI port, and connects to a wireless controller (or even a mouse and keyboard) via Bluetooth. It "works with any Bluetooth controller supporting HID," and will come with its own small gamepad, which features twin analog sticks and a slot to put the GameStick itself inside when not in use.
Do we know if it works yet?
GameStick's creators showed off pictures of a nonworking "Mark 1 Prototype Model," and posted video of a "Reference Board" actually playing games while plugged into a television. This was a roughly USB-stick-sized circuit board, which lacked an outer case.
The reference unit had wires coming out of it, but the GameStick FAQ explains that on new, "MHL compliant TVs" it can draw power straight from the HDMI port, in much the same way that many USB devices are powered by a USB connection. A USB connector cable will be supplied with GameStick just in case, and "there will also be a power adapter."
What about the games?
The GameStick reference unit was playing an Android game called Shadowgun, an over-the-shoulder third-person shooter which is considered technically demanding by Android device standards.
GameStick's creators say "We have some great games lined up already," and AFP Relax confirms that it has roughly the same internal specs as the Ouya, plus a lineup at launch of about a dozen games including several AAA Android titles.
How much will it cost, and when will it be out?
GameStick is available for preorder now from its Kickstarter page for $79. (The price includes the controller as well.) It has an estimated delivery date of April if the project is fully funded -- and with 28 days to go, it had more than reached its $100,000 goal.
Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

Read More..

5 Predictions for Mobile Tech in 2013

If denial isn't just a river in Egypt, then mobile isn't just a city in Alabama. And if 2012 proved one thing, it's that there's no denying mobile is the present and future of technology.
Sales figures for mobile devices reached new heights in 2012. Market research firm Gartner predicted tablet sales would near 120 million, about doubling the total sold in 2011.
[More from Mashable: Would You Make Your Kid Sign a Contract to Use an iPhone?]
In addition, the number of active smartphones eclipsed 1 billion during the past year. That's one for every seven people on the planet. And while it took almost two decades to reach 1 billion active smartphones, research firm Strategy Analytics projects there will be 2 billion by 2015, fueled by growth in developing economies in China, India and Africa.
It's not just phones and tablets though. All sorts of smart mobile technology flourished in 2012, from watches and wristbands to glasses that can project video on the inside of the lenses. Speaking of glasses, in April, Google sent the tech world into a tizzy when it unveiled plans for a futuristic headset called Project Glass.
[More from Mashable: ‘Offensive Combat’ Brings Hardcore Gaming to Facebook]
Well, if you think mobile came a long way in 2012, this year could be even better. Here's an outline of where we think mobile technology is headed in 2013.
Brand Wars Will Drive Innovation
In terms of smartphones, mobile in 2013 will be like an evening of boxing. For the main event, heavyweights Apple and Samsung will square off to see which can produce the world's most popular device.
The Samsung Galaxy III recently dethroned the iPhone for that honor. While Apple went conservative with new features on the iPhone 5, Samsung went bold, equipping the Galaxy S III with an enormous 4.8-inch display, near field communication (NFC) technology (more on this later), a burst-shooting camera and a voice-enabled assistent akin to the iPhone's Siri.
Apparently, Apple is preparing to counter-punch. There are already rumors that Apple is testing its next iPhone, identified as "iPhone 6.1" which runs iOS 7.
Behind the iPhone and Galaxy a host of capable contenders are hungry for a shot at the belt, including devices from Motorola, HTC and Nokia.
There might even be some new players in the game. It seems likely that Amazon will debut a Kindle Phone sometime in 2013. There was even talk that Facebook was working on its own smartphone, but CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg squelched those rumors in September.
What does this all this mean for us? It means better phones. Competition drives innovation. Look for these brands to consistently try to one-up one another with faster processors, better cameras and more innovative features.
That's not the only battle that will play out in 2013. Another one to watch will be the fight for third place in mobile operating systems. Android is the undisputed number one with nearly 75% global market share. While Apple's iOS is miles behind Android, it is still firmly entrenched at number two.
In 2013, the top two contenders for third place will be Windows Phone 8 and BlackBerry 10, which is expected to launch in the coming months.
A few dark horses are running in this race for third. Mozilla plans to launch a Firefox OS sometime during 2013. Then, there is Tizen, a Linux-based mobile OS. Samsung recently revealed plans to release Tizen-based devices in 2013.
Both Firefox and Tizen are open source mobile operating systems, but they won't be the only ones. There are two other open source mobile operating systems to watch going forward. Jolla expects to release smartphones and possibly tablets running its Sailfish OS in 2013; and Ubuntu-based smartphones should hit the market by early 2014.
No NFC Mobile Payment, Yet
Before leaving the house, most will check to make sure they have three things: keys, wallet and cellphone. Well, thanks to NFC technology, cellphones might soon lighten the load by essentially replacing wallets with an "e-wallet."
It seems like we have been talking about NFC for years now. Basically, it enables two devices to make a very short-range and secure connection through radio technology. If a smartphone is equipped with NFC, as are most newer-model Androids, and if a retailer has an NFC terminal, one could make a purchase by simply tapping the phone on the terminal.
NFC technology also has other applications, such as data transfer between phones, but mobile payments is the feature most often discussed.
Services like Isis and Google Wallet are already in place. They secure one's payment information within a device.
The reason why mobile payment through NFC has not yet hit the mainstream is that device penetration is not at the point where it has prompted retailers to update their technology. Basically, not enough smartphones have the technology. Androids have started to adapt, but unlike iPhones, Android hardware is not uniform across the various devices.
While the wheels have been in motion for some time, they're really spinning now that most new Androids, including the Galaxy S III, come with NFC. If Apple releases a new iPhone during 2013, and if Apple decides to include NFC this time around, it will probably tip the scales in favor of rapid adoption of mobile payment.
Even if all that does happen, however, there probably won't be a new iPhone until later in the year, so odds are you're not going to see NFC penetrate the mainstream during 2013. Maybe 2014 will finally be the year of NFC.
Flexible Smartphones
Here's something you never knew you needed -- a flexible smartphone. These devices will be lighter, more durable and the screen will be bendable. This feat is possible by making the display out of an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) and shielding it in plastic rather than glass. Samsung is reportedly moving forward with plans to start producing a bendable phone.
Samsung is not the only player in this game, however. Many companies are developing bendable screens. At Nokia World in London in 2011, Nokia showed off a device which not only bends but is controlled by bending. Check it out in the video below.

Read More..

Baby Bones Found Scattered in Ancient Italian Village

SEATTLE — The death of an infant may not have been an occasion for mourning in ancient Italy, according to archaeologists who have found baby bones scattered on the floor of a workshop dating to the seventh century B.C.
The grisly finds consist of bone fragments uncovered over years of excavation at Poggio Civitate, a settlement about 15 miles (25 kilometers) from the city of Siena in what is now Tuscany. The settlement dates back to at least the late eighth century B.C. Archaeologists excavating the site have found evidence of a lavish residential structure as well as an open-air pavilion that stretches an amazing 170 feet (52 meters) long. Residents used this pavilion was as a workshop, manufacturing goods such as terracotta roof tiles.
In 1983, scientists uncovered a cache of bones on the workshop floor, consisting mostly of pig, goat and sheep remains. But among the bony debris was a more sobering find: two arm bones from an infant (or infants) who died right around birth.
In 2009, another baby bone surfaced at the workshop, this one a portion of the pelvis of a newborn. [See Images of the Infant Bones]
The bones "were either simply left on the floor of the workshop or ended up in an area with a concentration of discarded, butchered animals," said Anthony Tuck, an archaeologist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who presented an analysis of the bones Friday (Jan. 4) at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America.
Abandoned bones
The discovery of the discarded infant bones in an area used for work could suggest that the people who labored in the workshop had little social status, Tuck said. They may have been slaves or servants whose lost infants would garner little sympathy from the community at large.
However, a third find complicates the picture. In 1971, archaeologists found an arm bone from another newborn or near-term fetus pushed up against the wall of the lavish residence along with other bones and debris. It seems as if someone swept the debris up against the wall, not differentiating between baby bones and garbage, Tuck said. [8 Grisly Archaeological Discoveries]
There's no way to know whose infant came to rest up against the wall of a wealthy person's home, said Tuck, who plans to submit the findings to the journal Etruscan Studies. Perhaps the infant belonged to a desperate servant, or perhaps to a member of the family. If so, it may be that even high-status families didn't consider babies worth mourning when they died in infancy.
The possibility can sound horrifying to modern ears, Tuck said.
"This kind of new data makes people a bit uncomfortable," he told LiveScience. "People have a tendency to romanticize the past, especially in a place like Tuscany. When we have direct evidence for this kind of behavior, it can be a little tricky to present."
Death in infancy
Nevertheless, Tuck said, there is reason to think that people have not always given infants the same community status as adults or older children. However, baby bones tend not to preserve well, which makes it difficult to know how ancient Italians in Tuscany treated their deceased infants.
Very few signs of infant burial appear in central Italian cemeteries from this time period, though, Tuck said. The handful of coffins containing baby bones that have been found are loaded with ornaments and jewelry, suggesting that only families of great wealth could have given a lost baby an adult-style funeral.
Even in modern times, societies have sometimes seen babies as belonging to a different category than adults, Tuck said. In areas of extreme poverty and stress that have high infant mortality, the death of a newborn may not trigger many outward displays of mourning, he said.
And many cultures have naming traditions that only recognize the baby's identity significantly after birth. For example, in traditional Jewish culture, a baby boy's name isn't revealed outside the family until the bris, or the ritual of circumcision eight days after birth. According to superstition, naming the baby before then would attract the attention of the Angel of Death.
The Maasai people of Africa give their newborns temporary names until a ceremony as late as age 3, in which the child receives a new name and has his or her head shaved to symbolize a fresh start in life.
On the other hand, not all ancient cultures differentiate between the burials of babies and adults. Stone Age infant graves found in Austria in 2006 date back to 27,000 years ago and contain the same beads and pigments as adult gravesites.
The people who lived in Poggio Civitate more than 2,000 years ago have left little evidence of how they viewed infants, but Tuck and his colleagues expect more finds to emerge as the researchers continue to dig in the Tuscany hills. More evidence that high- and low-class babies were buried differently would suggest that the civilization had a rigid hierarchy, they said.
Images of more than 25,000 objects recovered from the site can be found at Open Context, an open-source research database developed by the Alexandra Archive Institute.

Read More..

The 'Brotherhoodization' of Egypt and its unions

Issandr El Amrani, the main writer behind The Arabist, has been posting occasional links and thoughts on the Brotherhoodization of Egyptian institutions, real and imagined, since the election of the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohamed Morsi as president.
A few days ago he pointed to the failure of Egypt's new constitution to devolve powers from Egypt's traditionally strong central state to the provinces and the power that gives to President Morsi and his appointees to control politics at the local level. In Egypt's recent cabinet reshuffle what caught his eye in particular was the appointment of Brotherhood stalwart Mohamed Beshir as minister of local development, since he was given an expanded role in selecting governors, who are appointed, not elected, in Egypt. An article in Al-Masry Al-Youm ("Egypt Today") says Beshir's ministry is currently planning on changing eight Egyptian governors, with the new officials coming from the ranks of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party and Salafi Al Nour Party.
"This is probably a more significant move than the cabinet shuffle. Governors have tremendous powers in Egypt, particularly ahead of an election. That all come from politics — the FJP and Nour parties — rather than the senior civil service, police, universities etc. as was the case under Mubarak is a striking change. It will certainly fuel the accusations of "Brotherhoodization" of the state, this time with some merit. Constitutionally, President Morsi has the right to appoint governors or delegate that privilege. It's one of the many shames of the new constitution it does not include mechanisms for direct election of governors and the empowerment of local government."
Today he flags a new piece by Joel Beinin, a historian of Egyptian labor and industrialization at Stanford University, which reinforces the sense that Morsi and the leaders of the Brotherhood are seeking to adapt the institutions and methods of Mubarak's Egypt to their own rule, rather than fundamentally change the top-down way the country has almost always been governed.
Beinin writes that on Nov. 25, Morsi issued a presidential decree on labor unions that received scant attention in the press, coming as it did on the heels of a decree that issued him broad powers designed to help him rush through Egypt's new constitution. That earlier decree sparked clashes and a political stand-off that ended in a Brotherhood victory when the constitution was passed. But Decree 97 of 2012 could have far reaching implications for how Egypt is governed going forward.
The decree governs how the leaders of Egypt's state-controlled Egyptian Federation of Trade Unions (ETUF) will be chosen, and could lead to Brotherhood packing the government-sponsored sub-unions with their own men.
"The decree also authorizes Minister of Manpower and Migration Khalid al-Azhari of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party to appoint replacements to vacant trade union offices if no second-place candidate exists. State security officials banned thousands of opposition trade unionists from running in 2006, so hundreds of candidates ran unopposed. Thus, as many as 150 Muslim Brothers could be appointed to posts in ETUF’s 24 national sector unions, while 14 of 24 executive board members will be sacked," Beinin writes.
He continues:
Decree 97 also extends the terms of incumbent union office-holders for six months or until the next ETUF elections (whichever comes first). Muslim Brothers and ETUF old guard figures will supervise those elections and likely confirm their joint control over the organization. This is characteristic of the Muslim Brotherhood’s recent political practice. Rather than reform institutions and power centers of the Mubarak regime, it has sought to extend its control over them. But as in other spheres, they do not have a concrete program or enough trained personnel to manage ETUF. Therefore, they are dividing control of the organization with Mubarak era figures. Their common interest is first and foremost bureaucratic—to maintain their positions. The Brothers also seek to limit the extent of independent trade unionism, as it constitutes a potential opposition to their free market ideology.
That last sentence is worth emphasizing, since it's a point often missed about the Brothers in the West. The movement's economic ideology is largely free market capitalist, and strong independent trade unionism as about the furthest thing from the minds of the movement's leaders.
Beinin points out there were 3,150 strikes and other workers actions in the first eight months of last year, and with Egypt currently negotiating an austerity program in exchange for a $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, the chance for more unemployment and labor unrest is high.
In hindsight, an unprecedented wave of wildcat strikes across Egypt that started in the middle of the last decade helped set the stage for the uprising against Hosni Mubarak in 2011. While it looks clear that the new government, just like the old one, will seek to push labor organization into easily controlled government proxies, stuffing the genie back into the bottle may prove difficult.
In 2007, I quoted American University in Cairo Political Science Professor Mohammed Kamel al-Sayyid in a piece on the then-blossoming strike wave, which was being fueled by IMF-urged policies that had sped up economic growth, but left wages stagnant and unemployment high.
Mohammed Kamel al-Sayyid, a political science professor at the American University in Cairo, says the country's labor unrest could, over the long term, prove one of the greatest threats to the stability of the system, as a generation of Egyptians brought up to count on government jobs for life confront a new reality.
"This unprecedented wave of worker strikes certainly seems connected to the government's liberalization policies," he says. "I'm not saying there's going to be a revolution, but there's this ongoing process of deterioration in public trust. How many cops do you have to put on the streets to counter all this public frustration?"
Those risks, clearly, remain today. And now it is Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood's problem.

Read More..

Japan to boost military budget amid regional tensions

Japan's Defense Ministry will request a second boost to its military budget, according to reports, just a day after the government announced the first Defense budget increase in 10 years. The boosts, although relatively modest compared with Japan's overall defense spending, coincide with increasing tensions in the Asia Pacific region.
Japan's Defense Ministry intends to ask for 180.5 billion yen ($2.1 billion) from a government stimulus package – on top of an increase of more than 100 billion yen ($1.1 billion) to its military budget announced earlier this week – in order to upgrade its air defenses, according to the BBC.
"We will request 180.5bn yen to be allocated to military spending from a stimulus package," a defence ministry spokesman told Agence-France Presse news agency.
He said that part of it would fund the purchase of PAC-3 surface-to-air anti-ballistic missile systems and modernise four F-15 fighter jets.
The defence ministry spokesman said the funds were needed "to prepare for the changing security environment surrounding Japan".
The budgetary shifts are relatively modest – both increases are dwarfed by the government's 4.65 trillion yen ($53 billion) defense budget – but are still noteworthy as a reverse course from the past decade, which has seen a steady decrease in Japan's defense spending, notes the BBC.
RECOMMENDED: Think you know Japan? Take our quiz to find out.
Kazuhiko Togo, director at the Institute for World Affairs of Kyoto Sangyo University, told Agence France-Presse that the military budget increases were the direct result of tensions over a set of islands – known as Senkaku to the Japanese and Daiyou to the Chinese – claimed both by Tokyo and Beijing. The islands have been at the root of increasingly testy relations between the two countries, as they sit amid a region of the East China Sea believed to be home to large oil and natural gas deposits that both nations covet.
“China has publicly said it would seize the islands by force if necessary and acted as such. To avoid a possible armed clash, Japan has no choice but to possess deterrence by boosting its defence budget,” he said.
Get our FREE 2013 Global Security Forecast now
The Yomiuri Shimbun reports that the budgetary increase is needed to fund upgrades to materiel, as much of the budget is dedicated to salaries and food for personnel. "Continued decreases in defense spending [as in years past] would make it difficult for the SDF [Self-Defense Forces] to procure aircraft, vessels and other necessary equipment," it reports.
Bloomberg Business Week reports that according to documents distributed by the Defense Ministry, Japan also plans to use the budget increase to upgrade several F-15 fighters and purchase more missile interceptors.
The budgetary increases may also go toward exploring a drone program in Japan. The Guardian reports that China has been expanding its drone capabilities in recent months, nominally for surveillance, though experts warn future drone skirmishes with Japan are a strong possibility.
China unveiled eight new models [of domestically developed drones] in November at an annual air show on the southern coastal city Zhuhai, photographs of which appeared prominently in the state-owned press. Yet the images may better indicate China's ambitions than its abilities, according to Chang: "We've seen these planes on the ground only — if they work or not, that's difficult to explain."
Japanese media reports said the defence ministry hopes to introduce Global Hawk unmanned aircraft near the disputed islands by 2015 at the earliest in an attempt to counter Beijing's increasingly assertive naval activity in the area. ...
The Kyodo news agency quoted an unnamed defence ministry official as saying the drones would be used "to counter China's growing assertiveness at sea, especially when it comes to the Senkaku islands".

Read More..

Freed Iranians arrive in Damascus after prisoner swap

DAMASCUS/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Forty-eight Iranians freed by Syrian rebels in exchange for more than 2,000 civilian prisoners held by the Syrian government arrived in central Damascus on Wednesday, a Reuters witness reported.
The Syrian government has not referred to the prisoner swap and the whereabouts of the civilian prisoners was not immediately known.
Opposition groups accuse it of detaining tens of thousands of political prisoners during his 12 years in office and say those numbers have spiked sharply during the 21-month-old civil war.
The Syrian rebel al-Baraa brigade seized the Iranians in early August and initially threatened to kill them, saying they were members of Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps sent to fight for President Bashar al-Assad.
The Islamic Republic, one of his staunchest allies, denied this, saying they were Shi'ite Muslim pilgrims visiting shrines, and it asked Turkey and Qatar to use their connections with Syrian insurgents to help secure their release.
The freed Iranians arrived at a Damascus hotel in six small buses, looking tired but in good health, each carrying a white flower, and they were welcomed by Iranian Ambassador Mohammad Reza Sheibani. They did not speak to reporters.
Bulent Yildirim, head of the Turkish humanitarian aid agency IHH which helped broker the deal, told Reuters by telephone from Damascus shortly beforehand that the reciprocal release of 2,130 civilian prisoners - most of them Syrian but also including Turks and other foreign citizens - had begun.
Syrian government forces have struck local deals with rebel groups to trade prisoners but the release announced on Wednesday was the first time non-Syrians were freed in an exchange.
The Damascus government has periodically freed hundreds of prisoners during the conflict but always stressed such detainees "do not have blood on their hands."
Given the number of political prisoners held during the course of Assad's rule, missing persons became a key issue when street protests against him first erupted in March 2011.
Turkey is one of Assad's fiercest critics, a strong backer of his opponents and proponent of international intervention. It has denounced Iran's stance during the Syrian uprising, which has killed around 60,000 people according to a U.N. estimate.
Turkey, Gulf Arab states, the United States and European allies support the mainly Sunni Muslim Syrian rebels, while Shi'ite Iran supports Assad, whose Alawite minority is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.
A pro-government newspaper said on December 31 that Syrian forces arrested four Turkish fighter pilots who were trying to sneak into a military airport with an armed group in the northern province of Aleppo.
The Damascus-based al-Watan newspaper said the arrests at the Koers military base, 24 km (15 miles) east of Aleppo city, proved "scandalous Turkish involvement" in Syria's crisis.
TURKEY, QATAR INTERVENE
The al-Baraa brigade, part of the umbrella rebel organization, the Free Syrian Army, said in October it would start killing the Iranians unless Assad freed Syrian opposition detainees and stopped shelling civilian areas.
But Qatar, following a request from Iran, urged the rebels not to carry out the threat.
Insurgents fighting to topple Assad accuse Iran of sending fighters from the Revolutionary Guards to help his forces crush the revolt, a charge the Islamic Republic denies.
The rebels now control wide areas of northern and eastern Syria, most of its border crossings with Turkey and a crescent of suburbs around the capital Damascus.
But Assad's government is still firmly entrenched in the capital and controls most of the densely populated southwest, the Mediterranean coast and the main north-south highway.
The IHH has been involved in previous negotiations in recent months to release prisoners, including two Turkish journalists and Syrian citizens, held in Syria.
The humanitarian group came to prominence in May 2010 when Israeli marines stormed its Mavi Marmara aid ship to enforce a naval blockade of the Palestinian-run Gaza Strip and killed nine Turks in clashes with activists on board.

Read More..