Car bomb kills 11 soldiers in Libya´s Benghazi

Benghazi: A car bomb killed 11 soldiers in Libya´s second city Benghazi as they held evening prayers on the first day of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, a military source said Thursday.

Benghazi has been hit by repeated bombings since troops under the command of controversial General Khalifa Haftar drove fighters out of most of the city earlier this year.

Haftar refuses to recognise a joint military command set by the UN-backed unity government in Tripoli, saying he still takes orders from a rival administration based in the far eastern city of Tobruk.

Wednesday´s blast follows a car bomb targeting a security chief that killed two people on Sunday and a June 24 bombing that killed four civilians.
Meanwhile, a MiG-23 fighter jet of Haftar´s air force crashed in the west of Benghazi on Wednesday, killing its pilot, a spokesman said.

"The crash was due to a technical fault," Ahmad al-Mismari, spokesman of the Haftar-led army command, told AFP.

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Snapchat launches new save function for photos, videos

Snapchat announced a new feature that enables users to save and share their content, a big change for the popular social messaging app widely used for sending photos and videos that disappear in a day.

The new feature, called "Memories," is an album within the app where users can save photos and videos which they can later upload to their "Story," a slide show of contents that disappears after 24 hours. Until now, photos and videos had to be immediately uploaded after being recorded.

The move could signal that Snapchat, known for immediacy, spontaneity and simplicity, is taking a shot at more mainstream social networks like Facebook.

In recent years Snapchat added advertising and sponsored contents as the company's valuation grew to around $18 billion.

Its user base has also gotten older, with nearly 40 percent of users now aged between 25 - 34 in the United States. About 14 percent of users are above 35, according to digital measurer comScore.

"It's fun to celebrate an anniversary or birthday by finding a few old snaps and stringing them together into a new story," Snapchat said in the announcement made on its blog on Wednesday.

Snapchat has 150 million daily users, according to a Bloomberg report last month, surpassing Twitter, which has less than 140 million daily users.

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Snapchat launches new save function for photos, videos

Snapchat announced a new feature that enables users to save and share their content, a big change for the popular social messaging app widely used for sending photos and videos that disappear in a day.

The new feature, called "Memories," is an album within the app where users can save photos and videos which they can later upload to their "Story," a slide show of contents that disappears after 24 hours. Until now, photos and videos had to be immediately uploaded after being recorded.

The move could signal that Snapchat, known for immediacy, spontaneity and simplicity, is taking a shot at more mainstream social networks like Facebook.

In recent years Snapchat added advertising and sponsored contents as the company's valuation grew to around $18 billion.

Its user base has also gotten older, with nearly 40 percent of users now aged between 25 - 34 in the United States. About 14 percent of users are above 35, according to digital measurer comScore.

"It's fun to celebrate an anniversary or birthday by finding a few old snaps and stringing them together into a new story," Snapchat said in the announcement made on its blog on Wednesday.

Snapchat has 150 million daily users, according to a Bloomberg report last month, surpassing Twitter, which has less than 140 million daily users.

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Russian actions caused ´loss of trust´ with NATO: Merkel

BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that Russia´s actions in Ukraine had caused a loss of trust with the West, speaking on the eve of a major NATO summit in Poland.

"If through words and deeds the validity of law and the inviolability of frontiers are questioned, then of course trust is lost," she told the German parliament.

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US welcomes General Raheel Sharif's statement

ISLAMABAD: Washington welcomed General Raheel Sharif's statement on Thursday to not let Pakistan be used for terrorist activities against its neighbours. 

According to details, the United States welcomed the statement by General Raheel Sharif and expressed the hope that Pakistan would implement on the words of the general. Senior representatives of the White House said that General Raheel's statement was important and it remains to be seen how Pakistan would implement on his words. 

Senior representatives of the Obama administration said during a press briefing that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had stated the same words before that Pakistan would not let its land be used for terrorist activities against its neighbours. 

In response to a question, one senior representative stated that the presence of safe havens for terrorists in Pakistan was not a new thing. He however did say that during the past few years, Pakistan has acted against terrorist organisations and has also lost many lives in the process. 

He said there still was existence of terrorists groups in Pakistan and the United States has time and again raised this issue with Islamabad and expressed its reservations over the matter. 

The White House representative also said that Pakistan had guaranteed cooperation to the United States in carrying out activities against the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network. He also acknowledged that Pakistan had also taken significant steps against the above stated organizations. He said that Pakistan needed to maintain the pressure on such groups since it was in its own security interest. 

The senior representative further stated that Pakistan needed to root out militancy by working closely with the United States. He further stated that the United States believed that Pakistan's support was vital to peacekeeping in Afghanistan. 

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US welcomes General Raheel Sharif's statement

ISLAMABAD: Washington welcomed General Raheel Sharif's statement on Thursday to not let Pakistan be used for terrorist activities against its neighbours. 

According to details, the United States welcomed the statement by General Raheel Sharif and expressed the hope that Pakistan would implement on the words of the general. Senior representatives of the White House said that General Raheel's statement was important and it remains to be seen how Pakistan would implement on his words. 

Senior representatives of the Obama administration said during a press briefing that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had stated the same words before that Pakistan would not let its land be used for terrorist activities against its neighbours. 

In response to a question, one senior representative stated that the presence of safe havens for terrorists in Pakistan was not a new thing. He however did say that during the past few years, Pakistan has acted against terrorist organisations and has also lost many lives in the process. 

He said there still was existence of terrorists groups in Pakistan and the United States has time and again raised this issue with Islamabad and expressed its reservations over the matter. 

The White House representative also said that Pakistan had guaranteed cooperation to the United States in carrying out activities against the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network. He also acknowledged that Pakistan had also taken significant steps against the above stated organizations. He said that Pakistan needed to maintain the pressure on such groups since it was in its own security interest. 

The senior representative further stated that Pakistan needed to root out militancy by working closely with the United States. He further stated that the United States believed that Pakistan's support was vital to peacekeeping in Afghanistan. 

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White House proposes measures to speed genomic test development

WASHINGTON: The White House announced on Wednesday measures aimed at advancing President Barack Obama's precision medicine initiative, including plans to speed the development of tests used to identify genetic mutations and guide medical treatment.

The US Food and Drug Administration said it planned to issue a proposal on Wednesday to create performance standards to guide development of next generation sequencing (NGS) tests. These tests scan a person's DNA and identify genetic differences that could be responsible for a patient's symptoms.

The standards would be designed to assess how accurately a test identifies a genetic variant. The developer would certify that it had met those standards. Currently the FDA itself determines the test's accuracy.

"We believe that the use of standards is the best way to allow regulation to keep pace with the evolution of NGS technology," Dr. Robert Califf told reporters on a conference call.

A second FDA proposal would allow test developers to use data from publicly accessible genetic databases, not just their own data, to demonstrate that the test accurately predicts disease. Califf said the approach could potentially get rid of the need for the FDA to review the tests before they reach the market.

"Taken together, these guidances will foster innovation, assure the quality and reliability of NGS-based tests and promote their adoption into clinical practice," he said.

The FDA's action is part of a broader government initiative to promote the development of individually tailored medicines. Obama introduced the initiative in his State of the Union address last year, saying he wanted the United States to lead a new era of medicine, "one that delivers the right treatment at the right time."

As part of the project, the National Institutes of Health will invest $55 million to build the infrastructure needed to collect genetic data from more than 1 million volunteers, its director, Dr. Francis Collins, said on the conference call.

Collins said it will take three to four years to assemble the desired amount of genetic material, which will then be available to researchers to help develop drugs for cancer and other disease. Anyone, he said, can participate.

"This is about all of us," he said. "Participants will be true partners, not subjects, not patients." Data sharing, he added, will be "swift."

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