Pfizer/Bristol drug cuts recurrence of blood clots – study

(Reuters) – A new blood clot preventer from Pfizer Inc and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co reduced the risk of recurrence of clots in veins and lungs and death by 80 percent with no increase in major bleeding in a study testing extended use of the drug.

In the year-long trial of 2,486 patients who had been previously treated for the condition known as venous thromboembolism (VTE) the drug, apixaban, met the combined primary goal by significantly reducing the recurrence of blood clots and death from any cause compared with a placebo, according to data presented at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting in Atlanta, Georgia.

The rate of recurrence or death was 11.6 percent in the placebo group compared with 3.8 percent for those who got 2.5 milligrams of apixaban and 4.2 percent for the 5 mg dose of the drug. The results were also published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The incidence of major bleeding, always a concern with blood thinners, was extremely low in all three arms of the trial, researchers said – 0.5 percent for placebo, 0.2 percent for the low dose of apixaban and 0.1 percent for the higher dose.

“Usually when you have an effective antithrombotic you have to pay a price in terms of bleeding. This was not the case in this study,” Dr. Giancarlo Agnelli, the study’s principal investigator, said in a telephone interview.

“There was no evidence at all of increased major bleeding and this is extremely important because you are comparing an active drug with placebo,” he said.

There was a slightly higher rate of clinically relevant nonmajor bleeding, such as nose bleeds that required medical attention, observed in patients taking the higher dose of apixaban at 4.2 percent compared with the low dose and placebo, researchers said.

Apixaban belongs to a new class of blood thinners that aim to replace decades old and difficult to use warfarin. The drug, which will be sold under the brand name Eliquis, is widely considered to be one of the most important new medicines for Pfizer and Bristol-Myers, both of which saw their top selling products lose patent protection in the past year.

AWAITING U.S. APPROVAL

It is approved in Europe and awaiting a U.S. approval decision for preventing blood clots and strokes in patients with atrial fibrillation – a type of irregular heart beat – and is also being tested against warfarin as a primary treatment for VTE with data expected next year.

A rival drug from Bayer and Johnson & Johnson called Xarelto is already approved for both conditions, but based on clinical data analysts have said they believe Eliquis is the best class.

An approval for extended use in VTE patients, during which they would take the drug for at least a year after initial treatment, could significantly boost future sales.

“The evidence is for one year. The next step would be to see whether this clinical benefit is extended after one year,” Agnelli said.

VTE consists of deep vein thrombosis, typically blood clots in the legs, and pulmonary embolism, which are dangerous clots in the lungs. Clots that begin in the extremities can travel to the heart and lungs and can be fatal. VTE is typically treated with warfarin for three to six months.

After that, “there is quite a remarkable level of uncertainty about whether to extend or not,” explained Agnelli, professor of internal medicine at the University of Perugia in Italy, who presented the data at the ASH meeting.

“Extended treatment might be clinically relevant because the recurrence rate after stopping treatment can be 10 percent in the first year,” Agnelli said. “Reducing the recurrence of VTE means reduced hospitalization costs and in some cases fewer fatal events.”

Physicians have been looking for alternatives to warfarin, which must be closely monitored to keep levels therapeutic but not toxic. The new drugs do not require monitoring or the dietary and lifestyle changes necessary with warfarin. But they still face an uphill battle as warfarin is far less expensive, and doctors have a comfort level using a drug that has been around for more than half a century despite the challenges.

Patients in the study had received treatment with warfarin for six to 12 months before starting the one-year extension trial that aimed to show further treatment could reduce recurrence rates and to see if the lower dose of apixaban was a viable option.

“It is quite clear that the lower dose is as effective as the higher. For the first time we showed that by reducing the dose of an antithrombotic agent in this clinical setting we can have the same efficacy with no major bleeding,” Agnelli said.

“This is actually something that could change clinical practice,” he added.

(Reporting by Bill Berkrot; Editing by Jilian Mincer, Berard Orr)

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Storm that killed 600 threatens Philippines again

NEW BATAAN, Philippines (AP) — A typhoon that had left the Philippines after killing nearly 600 people and leaving hundreds missing in the south has made a U-turn and is now threatening the country's northwest, officials said Saturday.

The weather bureau raised storm warnings over parts of the main northern island of Luzon after Typhoon Bopha veered northeast. There was a strong possibility the disastrous storm would make a second landfall Sunday, but it might also make a loop and remain in the South China Sea, forecasters said. In either case, it was moving close to shore and disaster officials warned of heavy rains and winds and possible landslides in the mountainous region.

Another calamity in the north would stretch recovery efforts thin. Most government resources, including army and police, are currently focused on the south, where Bopha hit Tuesday before moving west into the South China Sea.

With many survivors still in shock, soldiers, police and outside volunteers formed most of the teams searching for bodies or signs of life under tons of fallen trees and boulders swept down from steep hills surrounding the worst-hit town of New Bataan, municipal spokesman Marlon Esperanza said.

"We are having a hard time finding guides," he told The Associated Press. "Entire families were killed and the survivors ... appear dazed. They can't move."

He said the rocks, mud, tree trunks and other rubble that litter the town have destroyed landmarks, making it doubly difficult to search places where houses once stood.

On Friday, bodies found jammed under fallen trees that could not be retrieved were marked with makeshift flags made of torn cloth so they could be easily spotted by properly equipped teams.

Authorities decided to bury unidentified bodies in a common grave after forensic officials process them for future identification by relatives, Esperanza said.

The town's damaged public market has been converted into a temporary funeral parlor. A few residents milled around two dozen white wooden coffins, some containing unidentified remains.

One resident, Jing Maniquiz, 37, said she rushed home from Manila for the wake of two of her sisters, but could not bring herself to visit the place where her home once stood in Andap village. Her parents, a brother and nephew are missing.

"I don't want to see it," she said tearfully. "I can't accept that in just an instant I lost my mother, my father, my brother."

She said that at the height of the typhoon, her mother was able to send her a text message saying trees were falling on their house and its roof had been blown away.

Maniquiz said her family sought refuge at a nearby health center, but that was destroyed and they and dozens of others were swept away by the raging waters.

"We are not hopeful that they are still alive. We just want to find their bodies so that we will have closure," she said.

Mary Joy Adlawan, a 14-year-old high school student from the same village, was waiting for authorities to bury her 7-year-old niece.

Her parents, an elder sister, five nieces and a nephew are missing.

"I don't know what to do," she said as she fixed some flowers on the coffin.

Esperanza said heavy equipment, search dogs and chain saws were brought by volunteers from as far away as the capital, Manila, about 950 kilometers (590 miles) to the north.

Nearly 400,000 people, mostly from Compostela Valley and nearby Davao Oriental provinces, have lost their homes and are crowded inside evacuation centers or staying with relatives.

The typhoon plowed through the main southern island of Mindanao, crossed the central Philippines and lingered over the South China Sea for the past two days. It made a U-turn Saturday and is now threatening the northwestern Ilocos region.

President Benigno Aquino III, after visiting the disaster zone, declared a state of national calamity late Friday to speed up rescue and rehabilitation, control prices of basic commodities in typhoon-affected areas and allow the quick release of emergency funds.

In Bangkok, Thailand, U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said the Philippines had appealed for international aid. She said many countries have already provided assistance, but did not specify the amounts.

Officials say 276 people were killed in Compostela Valley, including 155 in New Bataan, and 277 in Davao Oriental. About 40 people died elsewhere and nearly 600 are still missing, 411 from New Bataan alone.

Davao Oriental Gov. Corazon Malanyaon told the AP that clean water and shelter were the biggest problem in three towns facing the Pacific Ocean. She said she imposed a curfew there and ordered police to guard stores and shops to stop looting.

The Philippines is also counting economic losses. Banana growers reported that 14,000 hectares (34,600 acres) of export banana plantations, equal to 18 percent of the total in Mindanao, were destroyed. The Philippines is the world's third-largest banana producer and exporter, supplying international brands such as Dole, Chiquita and Del Monte.

Stephen Antig, executive director of the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association, said losses were estimated at 12 billion pesos ($300 million), including 8 billion pesos ($200 million) in damaged fruits that had been ready for harvest, and the rest for the cost of rehabilitating farms, which will take about a year.

At the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI expressed closeness to the people hit by the typhoon. "I pray for the victims, for their families and for the many homeless," the pontiff said Saturday, addressing pilgrims and tourists from his studio window overlooking St. Peter's Square.

___

Associated Press writers Oliver Teves and Hrvoje Hranjski in Manila, Francisco Rosario in Bangkok, Thailand, and Frances D'Emilio in Rome contributed to this report.

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Zynga seeks real-money gambling license in Nevada

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Social games maker Zynga Inc said on Wednesday it filed a preliminary application to run real-money gambling games in Nevada, a significant step in cracking a complex but potentially massive new market that could resuscitate its faltering business.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board will now examine whether Zynga is fit to hold a gaming license that would allow gamblers in the state to bet real money on the San Francisco-based company’s popular games like Zynga Poker, which currently involve only virtual chips with no monetary value.

Zynga is hoping that a lucrative real-money market could make up for a steep slide in revenue from its games like “FarmVille” and other fading titles that still generate the bulk of its sales.

“We anticipate that the process will take approximately 12 to 18 months to complete,” Zynga Chief Revenue Officer Barry Cottle said in a statement. “As we’ve said previously, the broader U.S. market is an opportunity that’s further out on the horizon based on legislative developments, but we are preparing for a regulated market.”

Zynga, along with many major gaming industry players, is hoping that a tide of proposed legislation to regulate gaming could sweep through states across the U.S. and open a massive new online market.

Nevada, Delaware and New Jersey are among the states that have moved or are moving toward interactive gaming after the U.S. Justice Department last year declared that only online betting on sporting contests was unlawful, presenting the opportunity for states to legalize some forms of online gambling, from lotteries to poker.

Although widespread legalization of online gaming in the United States appears years away at the minimum, obtaining a license in Nevada would be a meaningful foot in the door for Zynga’s nationwide aspirations.

Zynga has told investors in recent quarters that a concerted move into real-money gaming could represent a hefty – and badly needed – source of new revenue for the company, which has seen revenues sag and its stock plummet by more than three-quarters in the past year as gamers abandoned titles like “CityVille.”

In October, the company slashed its 2012 full-year earnings outlook for the second time and laid off employees to trim costs, while CEO Mark Pincus implored investors to give him time to turn around the company by pursuing initiatives like real-money gaming.

That month, Zynga struck a deal with bwin.party, a Gibraltar-based gaming company, to provide real money casino games like poker and slots in the United Kingdom beginning in the first half of 2013.

(Reporting By Gerry Shih; Editing by Chris Gallagher)

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Storm that killed 600 threatens Philippines again

NEW BATAAN, Philippines (AP) — A typhoon that had left the Philippines after killing nearly 600 people and leaving hundreds missing in the south has made a U-turn and is now threatening the country's northwest, officials said Saturday.

The weather bureau raised storm warnings over parts of the main northern island of Luzon after Typhoon Bopha veered northeast. There was a strong possibility the disastrous storm would make a second landfall Sunday, but it might also make a loop and remain in the South China Sea, forecasters said. In either case, it was moving close to shore and disaster officials warned of heavy rains and winds and possible landslides in the mountainous region.

Another calamity in the north would stretch recovery efforts thin. Most government resources, including army and police, are currently focused on the south, where Bopha hit Tuesday before moving west into the South China Sea.

With many survivors still in shock, soldiers, police and outside volunteers formed most of the teams searching for bodies or signs of life under tons of fallen trees and boulders swept down from steep hills surrounding the worst-hit town of New Bataan, municipal spokesman Marlon Esperanza said.

"We are having a hard time finding guides," he told The Associated Press. "Entire families were killed and the survivors ... appear dazed. They can't move."

He said the rocks, mud, tree trunks and other rubble that litter the town have destroyed landmarks, making it doubly difficult to search places where houses once stood.

On Friday, bodies found jammed under fallen trees that could not be retrieved were marked with makeshift flags made of torn cloth so they could be easily spotted by properly equipped teams.

Authorities decided to bury unidentified bodies in a common grave after forensic officials process them for future identification by relatives, Esperanza said.

The town's damaged public market has been converted into a temporary funeral parlor. A few residents milled around two dozen white wooden coffins, some containing unidentified remains.

One resident, Jing Maniquiz, 37, said she rushed home from Manila for the wake of two of her sisters, but could not bring herself to visit the place where her home once stood in Andap village. Her parents, a brother and nephew are missing.

"I don't want to see it," she said tearfully. "I can't accept that in just an instant I lost my mother, my father, my brother."

She said that at the height of the typhoon, her mother was able to send her a text message saying trees were falling on their house and its roof had been blown away.

Maniquiz said her family sought refuge at a nearby health center, but that was destroyed and they and dozens of others were swept away by the raging waters.

"We are not hopeful that they are still alive. We just want to find their bodies so that we will have closure," she said.

Mary Joy Adlawan, a 14-year-old high school student from the same village, was waiting for authorities to bury her 7-year-old niece.

Her parents, an elder sister, five nieces and a nephew are missing.

"I don't know what to do," she said as she fixed some flowers on the coffin.

Esperanza said heavy equipment, search dogs and chain saws were brought by volunteers from as far away as the capital, Manila, about 950 kilometers (590 miles) to the north.

Nearly 400,000 people, mostly from Compostela Valley and nearby Davao Oriental provinces, have lost their homes and are crowded inside evacuation centers or staying with relatives.

The typhoon plowed through the main southern island of Mindanao, crossed the central Philippines and lingered over the South China Sea for the past two days. It made a U-turn Saturday and is now threatening the northwestern Ilocos region.

President Benigno Aquino III, after visiting the disaster zone, declared a state of national calamity late Friday to speed up rescue and rehabilitation, control prices of basic commodities in typhoon-affected areas and allow the quick release of emergency funds.

In Bangkok, Thailand, U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said the Philippines had appealed for international aid. She said many countries have already provided assistance, but did not specify the amounts.

Officials say 276 people were killed in Compostela Valley, including 155 in New Bataan, and 277 in Davao Oriental. About 40 people died elsewhere and nearly 600 are still missing, 411 from New Bataan alone.

Davao Oriental Gov. Corazon Malanyaon told the AP that clean water and shelter were the biggest problem in three towns facing the Pacific Ocean. She said she imposed a curfew there and ordered police to guard stores and shops to stop looting.

The Philippines is also counting economic losses. Banana growers reported that 14,000 hectares (34,600 acres) of export banana plantations, equal to 18 percent of the total in Mindanao, were destroyed. The Philippines is the world's third-largest banana producer and exporter, supplying international brands such as Dole, Chiquita and Del Monte.

Stephen Antig, executive director of the Pilipino Banana Growers and Exporters Association, said losses were estimated at 12 billion pesos ($300 million), including 8 billion pesos ($200 million) in damaged fruits that had been ready for harvest, and the rest for the cost of rehabilitating farms, which will take about a year.

At the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI expressed closeness to the people hit by the typhoon. "I pray for the victims, for their families and for the many homeless," the pontiff said Saturday, addressing pilgrims and tourists from his studio window overlooking St. Peter's Square.

___

Associated Press writers Oliver Teves and Hrvoje Hranjski in Manila, Francisco Rosario in Bangkok, Thailand, and Frances D'Emilio in Rome contributed to this report.

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S.Africa’s Mandela admitted to hospital for tests

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Former South African president Nelson Mandela was admitted to hospital on Saturday for medical tests, although the government said there was no cause for alarm.

A statement from President Jacob Zuma‘s office gave no details of the condition of the 94-year-old anti-apartheid leader.

“Former President Mandela will receive medical attention from time to time which is consistent with his age,” the statement said.

“President Zuma assures all that Madiba is doing well and there is no cause for alarm,” it added, referring to Mandela by his clan name.

Mandela, who became South Africa‘s first black president after the country’s first all-race elections in 1994, was admitted to hospital in February because of abdominal pain but released the following day after a keyhole examination showed there was nothing seriously wrong with him.

He has since spent most of his time in his ancestral home in Qunu, a village in the impoverished Eastern Cape province.

His frail health prevents him from making any public appearances in South Africa, although in the last few months he has continued to receive high-profile visitors, including former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

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Election underscores Ghana’s democratic reputation

ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — Voters in Ghana selected their next president Friday in a ballot expected to mark the sixth transparent election in this West African nation, known as a beacon of democracy in a tumultuous region.

Proud of their democratic heritage, residents of this balmy, seaside capital trudged to the polls more than four hours before the sun was even up, standing inches apart in queues that in some places stretched 1,000-people deep.

By afternoon, some voters were getting agitated, after hitches with the use of a new biometric system caused delays at numerous polling stations.

Each polling station had a single biometric machine, and if it failed to identify the voter’s fingerprint, or if it broke down, there was no backup. At one polling station where the machine had broken down, a local chief said he’d barely moved a few inches: “I’m 58 years old, and I’ve been standing in this queue all day,” Nana Owusu said. “It’s not good.”

Late Friday, when it became clear that large numbers of people had not been able to vote, the election commission announced it would extend voting by a second day. This nation of 25 million is, however, deeply attached to its tradition of democracy, and voters were urging each other to remain calm while they waited their turn to choose from one of eight presidential contenders, including President John Dramani Mahama and his main challenger, Nana Akufo-Addo. The election commission

“Elections remind us how young our democracy is, how fragile it is,” said author Martina Odonkor, 44. “I think elections are a time when we all lose our cockiness about being such a shining light of democracy in Africa, and we start to get a bit nervous that things could go back to how they used to be.”

Ghana was once a troubled nation that suffered five coups and decades of stagnation, before turning a corner in the 1990s. It is now a pacesetter for the continent’s efforts to become democratic. No other country in the region has had so many elections deemed free and fair, a reputation voters hold close to their hearts.

The incumbent Mahama, a former vice president, was catapulted into office in July after the unexpected death of former President John Atta Mills. Before becoming vice president in 2009, the 54-year-old served as a minister and a member of parliament. He’s also written an acclaimed biography, recalling Ghana’s troubled past, called “My First Coup d’Etat.”

Akufo-Addo is a former foreign minister and the son of one of Ghana’s previous presidents. In 2008, Akufo-Addo lost the last presidential election to Mills by less than 1 percent during a runoff vote. Both candidates are trying to make the case that they will use the nation’s oil riches to help the poor.

Besides being one of the few established democracies in the region, Ghana also has the fastest-growing economy. But a deep divide still exists between those benefiting from the country’s oil, cocoa and mineral wealth and those left behind financially.

A group of men who had just voted gathered at a small bar a block away from a polling station in the middle class neighborhood of South Labadi. Danny Odoteye, 36, who runs the bar, said that the country’s economic progress is palpable and that the ruling party, and its candidate, are responsible for ushering in a period of growth.

“I voted for John Mahama,” he said. “Ghana is a prosperous country. Everything is moving smoothly.”

Administrator Victor Nortey, sitting on a plastic chair across from him, disagreed, saying the country’s newfound oil wealth should have resulted in more change.

“I voted for Nana Akufo-Addo,” He said. “Now we have oil. What is Mahama doing with the oil money?” Nortey said. “We can use that money to build schools.”

In an interview on the eve of the vote, Akufo-Addo told The Associated Press that the first thing he will do if elected is begin working on providing free high school education for all. “It’s a matter of great concern to me,” he said, adding that he plans to use the oil wealth to educate the population, industrialize the economy and create better jobs for Ghanaians.

Policy-oriented and intellectual, Akufo-Addo is favored by the young and urbanized voters. He was educated in England and comes from a privileged family. The ruling party has depicted him as elitist.

“The idea that merely because you are born into privilege that automatically means you are against the welfare of the ordinary people, that’s nonsense,” he said.

Ghana had one of the fastest growing economies in the world in 2011. Oil was discovered in 2007 and the country began producing it in December 2010.

Throughout the capital, new condominiums are rising up next to slums and luxury cars creep along narrow alleys lined with open sewers. A mall downtown features a Western-style cinema and is packed on weekends with middle class families. At the same time shantytowns are cropping up, packed with the urban poor.

Polls show that voters are almost evenly split over who can best deliver on the promise of development.

Kojo Mabwa said that he is voting for Akufo-Addo, because he is impressed by his promise of free education. He dismissed critics that say the project is too ambitious. “There is money,” he said. “(The ruling party) has done nothing for us. They are misusing our money.”

Paa Kwesi, a 30-year-old systems analyst, said he doesn’t think Akufo-Addo is making promises he can keep.

“He says he can do free education, but you have to crawl before you can walk. It’s not possible,” he said.

__

Associated Press writer Francis Kokutse contributed to this report from Accra, Ghana.

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Quentin Tarantino: if you think “Django Unchained” is violent, try slavery

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – If you think “Django Unchained” is violent, Quentin Tarantino has a historical reality check for you: Try slavery.

The “Pulp Fiction” auteur is back with an Antebellum revenge flick that according to early screenings pours on the blood and gore. Tarantino told an audience of British Academy of Film and Television Arts members on Thursday that if anything he spared the lash in his depiction of slavery, according to the Guardian.

“We all intellectually ‘know’ the brutality and inhumanity of slavery,” Tarantino said, “but after you do the research it’s no longer intellectual any more, no longer just historical record – you feel it in your bones. It makes you angry and want to do something … I’m here to tell you, that however bad things get in the movie, a lot worse shit actually happened.”

Tarantino’s comments indicate that he anticipates the irreverent “Django Unchained” – which opens on Christmas Day – will court controversy for setting its story against the backdrop of the slave trade.

The film centers on a bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) who partners with a freed slave (Jamie Foxx) to take down a plantation owner, Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio) who controls his wife. Candie, who speaks with Magnolia-scented menace in the trailers, owns a mixed-race club in Greenville, Miss., and deals in slave-fights.

Perhaps because the film features Tarantino’s trademark sardonic humor, some early viewers have compared “Django Unchained” to the works of Mel Brooks.

“Just watched what was basically a three-hour homage to BLAZING SADDLES,”@LouLumenick tweeted.

But despite the humor, in an interview with Howard Stern this week, Tarantino indicated that he took the responsibility of depicting slavery very seriously. In particular, he said that shooting a scene where a female slave is brutalized brought him to tears and deeply impacted the crew.

“It was early on in the production, and it was the first time we started officially dealing with that kind of ugliness,” Tarantino said. “We later got used to dealing with that kind of ugliness. But that first – it was traumatizing to everybody, none less because of the fact that we were doing it in the real slave area of a real plantation where the slaves lived.

“This actually happened on the grounds,” he added. “There was blood in that ground. Those trees had memories of everything that happened there. We could feel the spirits of the old slaves on the property.”

Of course, Tarantino has taken on controversial subjects before. He turned an ultra-violent and satiric eye at the Nazis and an SD colonel nicknamed the “Jew Hunter” and turned it into “Inglourious Basterds.” Dealing with charges of insensitivity, it nonetheless collected over $ 300 million worldwide and was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.

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US works with Russia on Syria, but wants Assad out

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that the United States and Russia are committed to trying again to get President Bashar Assad‘s regime and the rebel opposition to talk about a political transition in Syria, setting aside a year and a half of U.S.-Russian disagreements that have paralyzed the international community.

Clinton stressed, however, that the U.S. would insist once again that Assad‘s departure be a key part of that transition, a position not shared by the Russians.

In her first comments on the surprise three-way diplomatic talks held Thursday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.N. peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, Clinton said Washington and Moscow agreed to support a new mediation effort Brahimi would lead. She called Thursday’s discussions “constructive,” while adding that much work remained and suggesting that neither side shifted its fundamental position.

“We reviewed the very dangerous developments inside Syria,” Clinton said in Northern Ireland. “And both Minister Lavrov and I committed to supporting a new push by Brahimi and his team to work with all the stakeholders in Syria to begin a political transition.”

“It was an important meeting, but just the beginning,” she added. “I don’t think anyone believes there was some great breakthrough. No one should have any illusions about how hard this remains, but all of us with any influence on the process, with any influence on the regime or the opposition, need to be engaged.”

Neither Assad nor any opposition group has agreed to a cease-fire and talks. Both sides believe they can resolve the conflict militarily. Even if the U.S. and Russia reach a broader agreement on a path forward, bringing most of the world with them, it is unclear if that will have any effect on the fighting in Syria.

The 40-minute meeting with Lavrov and Brahimi immediately seemed to ease some of the tensions between the U.S. and Russia over how best to address Syria’s bloody, 21-month civil war. Through much of the conflict, the former Cold War foes have argued bitterly. The U.S. has criticized Russia for shielding its closest Arab ally. Moscow has accused Washington of meddling by demanding Assad’s downfall.

Clinton said nothing that suggested either government had changed its position, and Lavrov made no public comments after the meeting. But with rebels fighting government forces on the outskirts of Syria’s capital and Western governments warning about possible chemical weapons deployment by the Assad regime, Clinton emphasized the importance of taking another shot at a peaceful transition deal.

Diplomatic efforts are needed to gauge “what is possible in face of the advancing developments on the ground which are increasingly dangerous not only to Syrians, but to their neighbors,” Clinton said, in an apparent reference to Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal, which has become the focus of Western nervousness about the civil war.

Brahimi said after the talks that he would put together a peace process based on a political transition strategy the U.S. and Russia agreed on in Geneva in June. At that time, the process quickly became bogged down over how the international community might enforce its conditions.

But instead of addressing the plan’s shortcomings, Clinton stressed its continued value, saying it would commit any future Syrian authority to democratic principles and international human rights standards.

Clinton also said the strategy would have to mean the end of the four-decade Assad regime — a contentious point with Moscow, which has insisted that Syria’s leadership is not for the United States or any other outside party to decide on.

“The United States stands with the Syrian people in insisting that any transition process result in a unified, democratic Syria in which all citizens are represented — Sunni, Alawi, Christians, Kurds, Druze, men, women. Every Syrian must be included,” Clinton told reporters. “And a future of this kind cannot possibly include Assad.”

The plan Brahimi is hoping to resuscitate was crafted earlier this year by his predecessor as the Syria peace envoy, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Annan’s plan never got off the ground, and he resigned his post in frustration.

It starts with several demands on the Assad regime to de-escalate tensions and end the violence that activists say has killed more than 40,000 people since March 2011. It then requires Syria’s opposition and the regime to put forward candidates for a transitional government, with each side having the right to veto nominees proposed by the other.

If anything resembling Annan’s plan takes hold, it would surely mean the end of Assad’s presidency. The opposition has demanded his departure and has rejected any talk of him staying in power. Yet it also would grant regime representatives the opportunity to block Sunni extremists and others in the opposition that they reject.

The United States blamed the collapse of the process last summer on Russia for vetoing a third resolution at the U.N. Security Council that would have applied world sanctions against Assad’s government for failing to live by its provisions.

Russia insisted that the Americans couldn’t demand Assad’s departure. It also worried about opening the door to military action, even as Washington offered to include language in any U.N. resolution that would have expressly forbidden outside armed intervention.

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‘Post-PC’ is more than just marketing buzz for Apple CEO Tim Cook

Apple (AAPL) is no stranger to ditching technologies when it deems them to no longer be useful. The company dropped the floppy disk for a CD-ROM drive on the first iMac and most recently has shifted to building MacBooks and iMacs without any physical disc drives. In his first televised interview on NBC’s Rockcenter with Brian Williams, Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed that he has “ditched physical keyboards” now that he spends 80% of his time using his iPad “authoring email” and “working on things.” Cook says he’s gotten quite good at typing on the screen and advises people to trust auto-correction as it’s “quite good” — though it’s a feature we still blast iOS for some five years after the first iPhone launched. But what does it mean when the boss of the country’s most valuable company and the most revered technology company in the world doesn’t even use physical keyboards anymore? Perhaps the “post-PC” era will become mainstream sooner than we thought.

For years, Apple has touted the idea that we’re entering the “post-PC” era – a period when touchscreen-equipped smartphones and tablets will eclipse desktops, notebooks and complex operating systems as they slowly fade away into a niche reserved for professionals.

While there will still be a need for notebooks, Windows PCs and Macs, the increasing numbers of smartphones and tablets sold and continued decline of worldwide PC sales support Apple’s claim that mobile is where the next tech battleground is, even if Microsoft (MSFT) thinks otherwise.

The term “dogfooding” is often thrown around between tech blogs and Cook is doing exactly that — using his “own product to demonstrate the quality and capabilities of the product.”

As Steve Jobs once said, Apple only builds products its own engineers and designers would use themselves.

Cook’s not saying, “iPads are great” for some people and some tasks. The fact that Cook uses his iPad for 80% of his work and an iPhone all the time suggests he and Apple are serious about this post-PC era. Apple wants iPads and iPhones to be great for all of your computing needs.

Apple is serious enough about it that the big boss has shifted his habits from old-school typing on actual keyboards to using virtual keyboards. And for all we know, Cook could be using even more natural human interfaces such as more voice recognition (ex: Siri in iOS and built-in dictation in OS X Mountain Lion).

Will physical keyboards go the way of the dodo in the next handful of years? It’s doubtful, but don’t be surprised if you see fewer and fewer offices with QWERTY keyboards attached to PCs and more desks and execs just carrying tablets and a smartphone on the side.

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UK’s Kate and William “saddened” by nurse’s death

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s Prince William and his wife Kate said on Friday they were “deeply saddened” by the death of a nurse who fell victim to a prank call from an Australian radio station seeking details of the duchess’s condition while she was in hospital for morning sickness.

The King Edward VII hospital earlier confirmed the death of the nurse, Jacinda Saldanha.

“Their Royal Highnesses were looked after so wonderfully well at all times by everybody at King Edward VII Hospital, and their thoughts and prayers are with Jacintha Saldanha‘s family, friends and colleagues at this very sad time,” said a statement from William’s office.

(Reporting by Tim Castle; editing by Stephen Addison)

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