Merkel urges Egypt's Mursi to hold crisis dialogue

CAIRO/BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Egypt's Islamist president on Wednesday to open a dialogue with all political forces in the crisis-ridden Arab country after a week of violence that has killed more than 50 people.

President Mohamed Mursi flew to Germany to try to convince Europe of his democratic credentials, but in a sign of the political tensions back home, he restricted his trip to a few hours and canceled a planned Paris leg.

"One thing that is important for us is that the line for dialogue is always open to all political forces in Egypt, that the different political forces can make their contribution, that human rights are adhered to in Egypt and that of course religious freedom can be experienced," Merkel told Mursi at a joint news conference.

The Egyptian leader, who has faced months of protests by liberal and youth groups opposed to a new Islamic constitution, replied that dialogue was possible and that Egypt would be a state based on the rule of law, not run by the military.

But he refused to give a commitment sought by the opposition to form a national unity government, saying that would be for the new parliament to decide after elections expected in April.

Two more protesters were shot dead before dawn near Cairo's central Tahrir Square on the seventh day of what has become the deadliest wave of unrest since Mursi took power in June.

The army chief warned on Tuesday that the state was on the brink of collapse if Mursi's opponents and supporters did not end street battles that have marked the two-year anniversary of the revolt that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Mursi is due to return to Cairo later in the day.

Near Tahrir Square on Wednesday morning, dozens of protesters threw stones at police who fired back teargas, although the scuffles were brief.

"Our demand is simply that Mursi goes, and leaves the country alone. He is just like Mubarak and his crowd who are now in prison," said Ahmed Mustafa, 28, a youth who had goggles on his head to protect his eyes from teargas.

Opposition politician Mohamed ElBaradei called for a meeting of the president, ministers, the ruling party and the opposition to halt the violence. But he also restated the opposition's precondition that Mursi first commit to seeking a national unity government.

Mursi's critics accuse him of betraying the spirit of the revolution by keeping too much power in his own hands and those of his Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement banned under Mubarak which won repeated elections since the 2011 uprising.

Mursi's supporters say the protesters want to overthrow Egypt's first democratically elected leader. The unrest has prevented a return to stability ahead of parliamentary elections due within months, and worsened an economic crisis that has seen the pound currency tumble in recent weeks.

The worst violence has been in the Suez Canal city of Port Said, where rage was fuelled by death sentences passed against soccer fans for deadly riots last year. Mursi responded by announcing on Sunday a month-long state of emergency and curfew in Port Said and two other Suez Canal cities.

Protesters have ignored the curfew and returned to the streets. Human Rights Watch called for Mursi to lift the decree.

Mursi was keen to allay the West's fears over the future of the most populous Arab country in his meetings with Merkel and powerful industry groups in Berlin.

"DISTURBING IMAGES"

"We have seen worrying images in recent days, images of violence and destruction, and I appeal to both sides to engage in dialogue," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in a radio interview on Wednesday ahead of Mursi's arrival.

Germany's "offer to help with Egypt's transformation clearly depends on it sticking to democratic reforms", he added.

Germany has praised Mursi's efforts in mediating a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza after a conflict last year, but became concerned at Mursi's efforts to expand his powers and fast-track a constitution last year.

Berlin was also alarmed by video that emerged in recent weeks showing Mursi making vitriolic remarks against Jews and Zionists in 2010 when he was a senior Brotherhood official. Germany's Nazi past and strong support of Israel make it highly sensitive to anti-Semitism.

Mursi's past anti-Jewish remarks were "unacceptable", Westerwelle said. "But at the same time President Mursi has played a very constructive role mediating in the Gaza conflict."

Asked about those remarks at the news conference with Merkel, Mursi said they had been taken out of context and he was not against the Jewish faith.

Egypt's main liberal and secularist bloc, the National Salvation Front, has so far refused talks with Mursi unless he promises a unity government including opposition figures.

"Stopping the violence is the priority, and starting a serious dialogue requires committing to guarantees demanded by the National Salvation Front, at the forefront of which are a national salvation government and a committee to amend the constitution," ElBaradei said on Twitter.

Those calls have also been backed by the hardline Islamist Nour party - rivals of Mursi's Brotherhood. Nour and the Front were due to meet on Wednesday, signaling an unlikely alliance of Mursi's critics from opposite ends of the political spectrum.

Brotherhood leader Mohamed El-Beltagy dismissed the unity government proposal as a ploy for the Front to take power despite having lost elections. On his Facebook page he ridiculed "the leaders of the Salvation Front, who seem to know more about the people's interests than the people themselves".

German industry leaders see potential in Egypt but are concerned about political instability.

"At the moment many firms are waiting on political developments and are cautious on any big investments," said Hans Heinrich Driftmann, head of Germany's Chamber of Industry and Commerce.

Mursi's supporters blame the opposition for preventing an economic recovery by halting efforts to restore stability. The opposition says an inclusive government is needed to bring calm.

(Additional reporting by Yasmine Saleh and Marwa Awad in Cairo, Stephen Brown and Gernot Heller in Berlin and Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Giles Elgood and Paul Taylor)

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BlackBerry 10 unveiled, with company name change

NEW YORK: BlackBerry launched its comeback effort Wednesday with a revamped platform and a pair of sleek new handsets, along with a company name change as part of a move to reinvent the smartphone maker.

Canadian-based Research in Motion said it had changed its name to BlackBerry as it launched the BlackBerry 10, the new platform aimed at helping the firm regain traction in a market now dominated by rivals.

"From this point forward RIM becomes BlackBerry," chief executive Thorsten Heins told a glitzy unveiling in New York, one of six global events for the product launch. "It is one brand, it is one promise."

The company unveiled two new devices for its new platform, one with a physical keyboard called the Q10, and a touchscreen handset dubbed Z10.

The new BlackBerry "will transform mobile communications into true mobile computing," Heins said.

"Today is a brand new day in the history of BlackBerry."

The launch is seen as critical to BlackBerry, which had been the dominant smartphone maker before Apple launched its iPhone and others began using the Google Android operating system.

RIM says the all-new system will break new ground by allowing customers to flip between applications seamlessly and without first passing through a home page, to boost efficiency and multitasking.

Another key asset of BlackBerry 10 is what RIM dubbed the "BlackBerry balance," a system that allows users to separate professional communications and applications from music, photographs and other personal items.

Such an option means that if a user changes job, his or her former company can disable the device's corporate side without affecting personal data.

RIM's recent performance on Wall Street suggests the market is open to the BlackBerry 10. Shares have risen more than 30 per cent since the start of the year, although they dropped back over the last two sessions.

Carolina Milanesi, an analyst for Gartner who specialises in consumer devices, said the aim of the launch "is to reinstill faith in the BlackBerry brand and capture both consumer and enterprises at the same time."

Milanesi said a successful launch will at least give them a shot to get into the game" but that BlackBerry has little room for error, after a launch delayed several months.

"They will not be forgiven for any mistakes," she said.

BlackBerry shares fell 4.4 per cent after the launch to US$14.98.

According to research firm IDC, BlackBerry's share of the global smartphone market slipped to 4.7 per cent in 2012, to 68 per cent for Android and 18.8 per cent for Apple's iOS.

- AFP/jc

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BlackBerry goes glam, enlists Alicia Keys

BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins greets Alicia Keys as the company's new global creative director.

(Credit:
Sarah Tew/CNET)

BlackBerry wants to be hip, and it's going to to Alicia Keys for help.

The Canadian smartphone maker, which previously called itself Research in Motion, today named Keys as its global creative director. The position is one BlackBerry created to help "inspire the future" of the company.

Keys said she previously was a BlackBerry power user, but she left the platform after noticing sexier phones at the gym. For awhile she had two phones, but Keys has now moved back to just a BlackBerry.

It's typical for companies to seek endorsements for their products, and some have even named celebrities to positions within the company. Intel, for example, named singer Will.i.am as its director of creative innovation. Typically, such artists show up at various company events, in ads, and just generally talk up the products.

BlackBerry today launched a new operating system and two new devices that it hopes will attract users back to its platform. The company has faced steep market share loss to Apple and
Android handset vendors, and BlackBerry 10 is viewed by many to be the company's last shot at winning over buyers.

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Possible suspect for NYC mom missing in Turkey

ANKARA, Turkey Turkish police on Wednesday were trying to trace a contact who apparently corresponded with a New York City woman through social networking sites before she went missing, an official said.

Undated photo of Sarai Sierra

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Facebook

Sarai Sierra, a 33-year-old mother of two from Staten Island, N.Y., has been missing since Jan. 21 when she was supposed to return home from a solo vacation in Istanbul. Police there have set up a special unit to find her.

A senior police official told The Associated Press that Sierra had exchanged messages with a person before she disappeared and police were now trying to trace the man or woman he described as a possible suspect in her disappearance.

The official said Sierra "presumably met" the person after she arrived in Istanbul. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government rules that bar civil servants from speaking to journalists without prior authorization.

The official, however, denied several Turkish media reports - that police were searching for an unknown man caught following Sierra on security camera footage; that Sierra had spent some US$12,000 during her stay in Istanbul; and that a narcotics team had searched her hostel room on suspicion that she might be a drug courier. "It's all made-up," he said.

Sierra arrived in Istanbul on Jan. 7 and had been in regular contact with friends and family back in the United States. Before she went missing, Sierra told family members that she planned to take some photographs at Galata Bridge, a well-known tourist destination about 2 kilometers away from her hostel. She was supposed to begin traveling home on Jan. 21, but never checked into her flight back to New York.

Police have said Sierra made an excursion to Amsterdam, Netherlands, from Istanbul on Jan. 15 and travelled on to Munich, Germany, on Jan. 16 before returning to Istanbul on Jan. 19, WBCS in New York reports. Police were trying to determine the reason for her visit to the European cities.

Her husband, Steven, and brother, David Jimenez, travelled to Istanbul to help in the search and were interviewed by the Istanbul police Tuesday. The two left the police headquarters after some seven hours and were seen carrying a suitcase, which the state-run Anadolu Agency said belonged to Sierra.

Sierra's belongings, including her passport, were found in her hostel room.

Jimenez did not immediately respond to questions sent by email or to an interview request.

Police have released CCTV camera footage showing Sierra alone, eating in the food court of a shopping mall and walking along a main shopping street near her hostel. She is dressed in jeans, a brown leather jacket and a winter hat.

Sierra had planned to go on the trip with a friend but ended up going by herself when the friend couldn't make it. She was looking forward to exploring her hobby of photography, on her first trip outside of the United States, her family said.

Staten Island Rep. Michael Grimm is assisting in the case.

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Obama's Immigration Plan to Have More Direct Path

President Barack Obama is expected to lay out his principles for immigration reform in a speech in Las Vegas today that will include a potentially quicker path to citizenship than the bipartisan plan a group of senators unveiled earlier this week.

The president will offer some new details about the White House's immigration reform plan, which expands on a blueprint it released in 2011, a senior administration official told ABC News. But for now Obama will stop short of offering his own piece of legislation because of the progress made by the Senate "Gang of Eight."

See Also: Senate Wants Immigration Bill Passed in Months

The White House has sounded positive notes about the Senate group's plan thus far, but the specifics that Obama announces are expected to have some key differences that might cause concern for some Republican senators who have signed onto the senate deal.

Like the senators' plan, Obama's proposal calls for a pathway to citizenship for many of the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. The senators' plan would grant "probationary legal status" immediately to eligible undocumented immigrants, but would not allow them to apply for permanent legal status, or a green card, until the border is deemed to be secure. Think of that as a trigger system.

On the other hand, Obama's framework would not contain a border security measure. Administration officials told media outlets that they believe a path to citizenship needs to be straightforward. They also believe a trigger system, like the one in the senate plan, could lead to a state of legal limbo for the undocumented immigrants who receive legal status, The Washington Post reported.

The border-security-first plan, however, is essential to Republican senators who signed onto the Senate "Gang of Eight" deal.

"I will not be supporting any law that does not ensure that the enforcement things happen," Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a member of the group, told conservative blogger Ed Morrissey on his web radio show.

See Also: 3 Flashpoints in the Senate Immigration Blueprint

Obama's plan is likely to include language that would allow same-sex bi-national couples to have the same rights as heterosexual couples, BuzzFeed and The Washington Post reported. Under current law, gays and lesbians who are married to U.S. citizens under state laws cannot obtain a green card. Obama's plan would allow them a path to citizenship, but the issue is not mentioned in the Senate "Gang of Eight" proposal.

As noted by the Post, that language may anger Christian groups who have signaled they would support comprehensive immigration reform.

But the White House remains optimistic about the progress that has been made so far. An official described the senators' announcement as a "breakthrough" to ABC News because it wasn't clear whether Republicans would sign on to any path to citizenship.

Some observers couched the Senate group's decision to come out with his plan a day before Obama as an attempt to outfox the White House politically. But administration officials told media outlets they remain generally pleased with the plan and believe that the president's speech could build momentum for a final bill.

ABC's Reena Ninan contributed reporting.

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Army warns unrest pushing Egypt to the brink

CAIRO, Egypt (Reuters) - Egypt's army chief said political unrest was pushing the state to the brink of collapse - a stark warning from the institution that ran the country until last year as Cairo's first freely elected leader struggles to curb bloody street violence.

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a U.S.-trained general appointed by President Mohamed Mursi last year to head the armed forces, added in a statement on Tuesday that one of the primary goals of deploying troops in cities on the Suez Canal was to protect the waterway that is vital for Egypt's economy and world trade.

Sisi's comments, published on an official army Facebook page, followed 52 deaths in the past week of disorder and highlighted the mounting sense of crisis facing Egypt and its Islamist head of state who is striving to fix a teetering economy and needs to prepare Egypt for a parliamentary election in a few months that is meant to cement the new democracy.

Violence largely subsided on Tuesday, although some youths again hurled rocks at police lines in Cairo near Tahrir Square.

It seemed unlikely that Sisi was signaling the army wants to take back the power it held for six decades since the end of the colonial era and through an interim period after the overthrow of former air force chief Hosni Mubarak two years ago.

But it did send a powerful message that Egypt's biggest institution, with a huge economic as well as security role and a recipient of massive direct U.S. subsidies, is worried about the fate of the nation, after five days of turmoil in major cities.

"The continuation of the struggle of the different political forces ... over the management of state affairs could lead to the collapse of the state," said General Sisi, who is also defense minister in the government Mursi appointed.

He said the economic, political and social challenges facing the country represented "a real threat to the security of Egypt and the cohesiveness of the Egyptian state" and the army would remain "the solid and cohesive block" on which the state rests.

Sisi was picked by Mursi after the army handed over power to the new president in June once Mursi had sacked Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, in charge of Egypt during the transition and who had also been Mubarak's defense minister for 20 years.

The instability has provoked unease in Western capitals, where officials worry about the direction of a powerful regional player that has a peace deal with Israel. The United States condemned the bloodshed and called on Egyptian leaders to make clear violence was not acceptable.

DEEPLY POLARISED

The 58-year-old previously headed military intelligence and studied at the U.S. Army War College. Diplomats say he is well known to the United States, which donates $1.3 billion in military aid each year, helping reassure Washington that the last year's changes in the top brass would not upset ties.

One of Sisi's closest and longest serving associates, General Mohamed el-Assar, an assistant defense minister, is now in charge of the military's relations with the United States.

Almost seven months after Mursi took office, Egyptian politics have become even more deeply polarized.

Opponents spurned a call by Mursi for talks on Monday to try to end the violence. Instead, protesters have rallied in Cairo and Alexandria, and in the three Suez Canal cities - Port Said, Ismailia and Suez - where Mursi imposed emergency rule.

On Tuesday, thousands were again on the streets of Port Said to mourn the deaths of two people in the latest clashes there, taking the total toll in Mediterranean port alone to 42 people. Most were killed by gunshots in a city where weapons are rife.

Mohamed Ezz, a Port Said resident speaking by telephone, heard heavy gunfire through the night. "Gunshots damaged the balcony of my flat, so I went to stay with my brother," he said.

Residents in the three canal cities had taken to the streets in protest at a nightly curfew now in place there. The president's spokesman said on Tuesday that the 30-day state of emergency could be shortened, depending on circumstances.

In Cairo on Tuesday afternoon, police again fired teargas at stone-throwing youths in a street near Tahrir Square, the center of the 2011 uprising. But the clashes were less intense than previous days and traffic was able to cross the area. Street cleaners swept up the remains of burnt tires and other debris.

The police have been facing "unprecedented attacks accompanied by the appearance of groups that pursue violence and whose members possess different types of weapons", the state news agency reported, quoting the Interior Ministry spokesman.

Street flare-ups are a common occurrence in divided Egypt, frustrating many people desperate for order and economic growth.

WARY MILITARY

Although the general's comments were notably blunt, Egypt's military has voiced similar concerns in the past, pledging to protect the nation. But it has refused to be drawn back into a direct political role after its reputation as a neutral party took a pounding during the 17 months after Mubarak fell.

"Egyptians are really alarmed by what is going on," said Cairo-based analyst Elijah Zarwan, adding that the army was reflecting that broader concern among the wider public.

"But I don't think it should be taken as a sign that the military is on the verge of stepping in and taking back the reins of government," he said.

In December, Sisi offered to host a national dialogue when Mursi and the rivals were again at loggerheads and the streets were aflame. But the invitation was swiftly withdrawn before the meeting went ahead, apparently because the army was wary of becoming embroiled again in Egypt's polarized politics.

Protests initially flared during the second anniversary of the uprising which erupted on January 25, 2011 and toppled Mubarak 18 days later. They were exacerbated in Port Said when residents were angered after a court sentenced to death several people from the city over deadly soccer violence.

Since the 2011 revolt, Islamists who Mubarak spent his 30-year rule suppressing have won two referendums, two parliamentary elections and a presidential vote.

But that legitimacy has been challenged by an opposition that accuses Mursi of imposing a new form of authoritarianism. Mursi's supporters says protesters want to overthrow Egypt's first democratically elected leader by undemocratic means.

The army has already been deployed in Port Said and Suez and the government agreed a measure to let soldiers arrest civilians as part of the state of emergency. Sisi reiterated that the army's role would be to support the police in restoring order.

Mursi's invitation to rivals to a national dialogue with Islamists on Monday was spurned by the main opposition National Salvation Front coalition, which described it as "cosmetic".

The presidency said a committee would be formed to look at changes to the constitution, but it ruled out changing the government before the parliamentary election.

Mursi's pushing through last month of a new constitution which critics see as too Islamic remains a bone of contention.

(Additional reporting by Yasmine Saleh and Omar Fahmy in Cairo, Yusri Mohamed in Ismailia and Abdelrahman Youssef in Alexandria; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Peter Millership)

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US Senate committee approves Kerry nomination

 

WASHINGTON: Senator John Kerry easily cleared the first hurdle of his confirmation as the next secretary of state Tuesday with a unanimous vote of approval by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Kerry, President Barack Obama's pick to replace Hillary Clinton as the nation's top diplomat, must still be confirmed by a vote of the full Senate later in the day, but that was expected to be a shoo in.

His colleagues on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which Kerry chairs, gave him a unanimous vote of approval, with Republicans joining Democrats.

Kerry, who did not vote, said he was "humbled" and gratified.

"They've been wonderful, they've been really superb," he said of his colleagues on the committee, adding, "I'm very wistful about it, it's not easy" leaving.

- AFP/fa

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Nooly weather app claims to-the-minute forecast accuracy

Can weather forecasting do better than "30 percent chance of showers"? What if it could tell you the minute it will start raining?

"Nowcasting" app Nooly claims it can tell you when precipitation will start and end with an accuracy of five minutes. It can also tell you when storms will intensify.

Nooly coverage, currently limited to the U.S. and Canada, can focus on an area within 0.4 square miles of your location.

It delivers 240 million predictions every five minutes based on a custom-designed algorithm that crunches satellite and radar data from NASA and NOAA. After a year of beta testing with some 50,000 users, it's now available for free to iOS and
Android users.

"Being so hyperlocal brings with it wide range of challenges," Nooly CEO Yaron Reich said in a release. "We had to adjust our algorithm for different cities, like Seattle, which experiences shallow, constant rain, and New York, which often sees bursts of rain lasting a few minutes and impacting only a cluster of city blocks.

"San Francisco is also a tricky city, with a mostly calm climate, though the weather can change in very specific streets and neighborhoods. Hyperlocal is challenging, but obviously key."

This rather barebones app offers local forecasts in a variety of formats -- with Google maps, graphs, and tables with times in 5-minute, 15-minute, or hourly predictions for the weather, which includes temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind speed, and direction.

You can also search by location and add places to a favorites list. But there are no fancy graphics or video forecasts.

When I tried the app, Nooly gave me a fairly accurate picture of conditions outside, but snow flurries began more than 20 minutes before the estimated time.

Nonetheless, I was about to declare that better than The Weather Channel or AccuWeather until I noticed that Nooly got the local temperature in Montreal wrong, repeatedly listing it at minus 16 C (3 F) instead of the actual reading of minus 9 C (16 F), which I confirmed with a thermometer.

That's a big discrepancy -- a long-johns false alarm. Maybe the local version of the algorithm needs tuning.

Nooly's minimalist user interface on a Samsung Galaxy tab running Android also left a few things to be desired. I couldn't get it to display in landscape mode, menu buttons are small and hard to select, and the "home" button may not always give you the conditions at your default location. Performance was sluggish.

Still, with these kinks ironed out, Nooly could deliver on the promise of a to-the-minute forecasting service. Just don't make plans around it for now.

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Report: A-Rod, Cruz, Gonzalez linked to PED probe

New York Yankees' $275 million man Alex Rodriguez, Washington Nationals All-Star Gio Gonzalez and Texas Rangers slugger Nelson Cruz are among the players connected to performance-enhancing drugs in a new investigative report by the Miami New Times.

A former employee of a South Florida clinic called Biogenesis gave the Miami New Times "an extraordinary batch of records" showing athletes received various substances from Anthony Bosch, the clinic's chief who is already under investigation by Major League Baseball and the Drug Enforcement Administration, as CBSSports.com reported. At least one boxer, one tennis player and a coach were also implicated.

The report outlines "damning evidence" against A-Rod as his name appears in Biogenesis records up until 2012. Rodriguez, who finally admitted to taking PEDs in 2009, claims he has been clean for a decade. An excerpt of the report on A-Rod reads:

There, at number seven on the list, is Alex Rodriguez. He paid $3,500, Bosch notes. Below that, he writes, "1.5/1.5 HGH (sports perf.) creams test., glut., MIC, supplement, sports perf. Diet." HGH, of course, is banned in baseball, as are testosterone creams...."

The mentions of Rodriguez begin in 2009 and continue all the way through last season. Take a page in another notebook, which is labeled "2012" and looks to have been written last spring. Under the heading "A-Rod/Cacique," Bosch writes, "He is paid through April 30th. He will owe May 1 $4,000... I need to see him between April 13-19, deliver troches, pink cream, and... May meds. Has three weeks of Sub-Q (as of April).

27 Photos

MLB players banned for positive drug tests

Other names linked to Biogenesis in the report include outfielder Melky Cabrera, pitcher Bartolo Colon and catcher Yasmani Grandal - all of whom were suspended last season under MLB's ban on performance-enhancing drugs.

Writes Tim Elfrink, the author of the Miami New Times report: "As baseball teams head to spring training under a tougher new policy, the Biogenesis records affirm that the war on doping has been as futile as the War on Drugs."

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Grand Jury Wanted to Indict JonBenet's Parents

A grand jury believed there was enough evidence in 1999 to indict John and Patsy Ramsey on charges relating to the still-unsolved killing of their beauty queen daughter JonBenet Ramsey, ABC News sources say.

Six-year-old JonBenet was found dead in the basement of her family's upscale Boulder, Colo., home Christmas Day 1996. Suspicion fell on her parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, but they insisted an intruder was to blame and they were never prosecuted.

In an interview with ABC News' Barbara Walters after her death, both of the girl's parents denied that they had killed her. They were eventually cleared by prosecutors.

JonBenet Ramsey Case: New Grand Jury Report Watch Video

After meeting for more than a year, a grand jury found sufficient evidence to indict the couple on charges of child abuse resulting in death, as first reported Sunday by the Boulder Daily Camera newspaper and confirmed by two separate sources by ABC News.

"This grand jury, in effect, came up with a compromise finding, 'No, it's not murder,' but, 'Yes, we think they were responsible' for the death based on abuse," ABC News legal analyst Dan Abrams said.

PHOTOS: JonBenet Ramsey: Never-Before-Seen Photos

But District Attorney Alex Hunter refused to sign off on the grand jury's decision, saying there was too little proof.

"I and my prosecution task force believe we do not have sufficient evidence to warrant the filing of charges against anyone who has been investigated at this time," Hunter said then.

Hunter believed a conviction would be impossible. Abrams said that he agrees with the decision.

"I've seen the majority of the case files and I think Alex Hunter made the right call," he said. "I think there simply was not enough evidence to move forward."

Patsy Ramsey died in 2006 after a battle with ovarian cancer. John Ramsey remarried. His attorney told ABC News that Hunter is "a hero who wisely avoided a miscarriage of justice."

The case is still officially open but, as in 1996, investigators seem no closer to solving the crime this year, when JonBenet would have turned 23.

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