Boy Scouts leaders make announcement on gay ban

Updated at 11:07 a.m. ET

IRVING, Texas The Boy Scouts of America put off a decision Wednesday on whether to lift its ban on gay members and leaders, saying the question will be taken up at the organization's national meeting in May.

"After careful consideration and extensive dialogue within the Scouting family, along with comments from those outside the organization, the volunteer officers of the Boy Scouts of America's National Executive Board concluded that due to the complexity of this issue, the organization needs time for a more deliberate review of its membership policy," Deron Smith, the BSA director of public relations, said in a statement.

Smith said the organization's national executive board will prepare a resolution for the 1,400 voting members of the national council to consider. The annual meeting will take place in May 2013 in Grapevine, Texas.

BSA announced last week it was considering allowing troops to decide whether to allow gay membership. That news has placed a spotlight on executive board meetings that began Monday in Irving, Texas, where scouting headquarters is located.

Smith said last week that the board could take a vote Wednesday or decide to discuss the policy, but that the organization would issue a statement either way. Otherwise, the board has remained silent, with reporters barred from the hotel where its meetings are taking place.

At nearby BSA headquarters, a handful of Scouts and leaders delivered petitions Monday in support of letting gay members join. The conservative group Texas Values, meanwhile, had organized a Wednesday morning prayer vigil urging the Scouts to keep their policy the same.

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Obama on women in combat, gay Boy Scouts

President Obama, an opponent of the policy, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, an Eagle Scout who supports it, both have weighed in.

"My attitude is that gays and lesbians should have access and opportunity the same way everybody else does in every institution and walk of life," said Mr. Obama, who as U.S. president is the honorary president of BSA, in a Sunday interview with CBS News.

Perry, the author of the book "On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For," said in a speech Saturday that "to have popular culture impact 100 years of their standards is inappropriate."

The board faces several choices, none of which is likely to quell controversy. Standing pat would go against the public wishes of two high-profile board members — Ernst & Young CEO James Turley and AT&T Inc. CEO Randall Stephenson — who run companies with nondiscrimination policies and have said they would work from within to change the Scouts' policy.

Conservatives have warned of mass defections if Scouting allows gay membership to be determined by troops. Local and regional leaders, as well as the leadership of churches that sponsor troops, would be forced to consider their own policies. And policy opponents who delivered four boxes of signatures to BSA headquarters Monday said they wouldn't be satisfied by only a partial acceptance of gay scouts and leaders.

"We don't want to see Scouting gerrymandered into blue and red districts," said Brad Hankins, campaign director of Scouts for Equality.

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Boy Rescued in Ala. Standoff 'Laughing, Joking'

The 5-year-old boy held hostage in a nearly week-long standoff in Alabama is in good spirits and apparently unharmed after being reunited with his family at a hospital, according to his family and law enforcement officials.

The boy, identified only as Ethan, was rescued by the FBI Monday afternoon after they rushed the underground bunker where suspect Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, was holding him. Dykes was killed in the raid and the boy was taken away from the bunker in an ambulance.

Ethan's thrilled relatives told "Good Morning America" today that he seemed "normal as a child could be" after what he went through and has been happily playing with his toy dinosaur.

"He's happy to be home," Ethan's great uncle Berlin Enfinger told "GMA." "He's very excited and he looks good."

Who Is Jimmy Lee Dykes?

"If I could, I would do cartwheels all the way down the road," Ethan's aunt Debra Cook said. "I was ecstatic. Everything just seemed like it was so much clearer. You know, we had all been walking around in a fog and everyone was just excited. There's no words to put how we felt and how relieved we were."

Cook said that Ethan has not yet told them anything about what happened in the bunker and they know very little about Dykes.

Ala. Hostage Standoff Over: Kidnapper Dead, Child Safe Watch Video

Alabama Hostage Standoff: Jimmy Lee Dykes Dead Watch Video

What the family does know is that they are overjoyed to have their "little buddy" back.

"He's a special child, 90 miles per hour all the time," Cook said. "[He's] a very, very loving child. When he walks in the room, he just lights it up."

Officials have remained tight-lipped about the raid, citing the ongoing investigation.

"I've been to the hospital," FBI Special Agent Steve Richardson told reporters Monday night. "I visited with Ethan. He is doing fine. He's laughing, joking, playing, eating, the things that you would expect a normal 5- to 6-year-old young man to do. He's very brave, he's very lucky, and the success story is that he's out safe and doing great."

Ethan is expected to be released from the hospital later today and head home where he will be greeted by birthday cards from his friends at school. Ethan will celebrate his 6th birthday Wednesday.

Officials were able to insert a high-tech camera into the 6-by-8-foot bunker to monitor Dykes' movements, and they became increasingly concerned that he might act out, a law enforcement source with direct knowledge told ABC News Monday. FBI special agents were positioned near the entrance of the bunker and used two explosions to gain entry at the door and neutralize Dykes.

"Within the past 24 hours, negotiations deteriorated and Mr. Dykes was observed holding a gun," the FBI's Richardson said. "At this point, the FBI agents, fearing the child was in imminent danger, entered the bunker and rescued the child."

Richardson said it "got tough to negotiate and communicate" with Dykes, but declined to give any specifics.

After the raid was complete, FBI bomb technicians checked the property for improvised explosive devices, the FBI said in a written statement Monday afternoon.

The FBI had created a mock bunker near the site and had been using it to train agents for different scenarios to get Ethan out, sources told ABC News.

Former FBI special agent and ABC News consultant Brad Garrett said rescue operators in this case had a delicate balance.

"You have to take into consideration if you're going to go in that room and go after Mr. Dykes, you have to be extremely careful because any sort of device you might use against him, could obviously harm Ethan because he's right there," he said.

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Iran's Ahmadinejad in Egypt on historic visit

CAIRO (Reuters) - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Egypt on Tuesday on the first trip by an Iranian president since the 1979 revolution, underlining a thaw in relations since Egyptians elected an Islamist head of state.

President Mohamed Mursi, the Muslim Brotherhood politician elected in June, kissed Ahmadinejad as he disembarked from his plane at Cairo airport. The leaders walked down a red carpet, Ahmadinejad smiling as he shook hands with waiting dignitaries.

Visiting Cairo to attend an Islamic summit that begins on Wednesday, the president of the Shi'ite Islamist republic is due to meet later on Tuesday with the grand sheikh of al-Azhar, one of the oldest seats of learning in the Sunni world.

Such a visit would have been unthinkable during the rule of Hosni Mubarak, the military-backed autocrat who preserved Egypt's peace treaty with Israel during his 30 years in power and deepened ties between Cairo and the West.

"The political geography of the region will change if Iran and Egypt take a unified position on the Palestinian question," Ahmadinejad said in an interview with Al Mayadeen, a Beirut-based TV station, on the eve of his visit.

He said he wanted to visit the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian territory which neighbors Egypt to the east and is run by the Islamist movement Hamas. "If they allow it, I would go to Gaza to visit the people," Ahmadinejad said.

Analysts doubt that the historic changes that brought Mursi to power in Egypt will result in a full restoration of diplomatic ties between states whose relations were broken off after the Iranian revolution and the conclusion of Egypt's peace treaty with Israel in 1979.

OBSTACLES TO FULL TIES

At the airport the two leaders discussed ways of boosting relations between their countries and resolving the Syrian crisis "without resorting to military intervention", Egyptian state media reported.

Egypt is concerned by Iran's support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is trying to crush an uprising inspired by the revolt that swept Mubarak from power two years ago. Egypt's overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim population is broadly supportive of the uprising against Assad's Alawite-led administration.

The Mursi administration also wants to safeguard relations with Gulf Arab states that are supporting Cairo's battered state finances and are deeply suspicious of Iran.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr reassured Gulf Arab allies that Egypt would not jeopardize their security.

"The security of the Gulf states is the security of Egypt," he told the official MENA news agency, in response to questions about Cairo's opening to Iran and its impact on other states in the region.

Mursi wants to preserve ties with the United States, the source of $1.3 billion in aid each year to the influential Egyptian military.

His government has established close ties with Hamas, a movement backed by Iran and shunned by the West because of its hostility to Israel, but its priority is addressing Egypt's deep economic problems.

"The restoration of full relations with Iran in this period is difficult, despite the warmth in ties ... because of many problems including the Syrian crisis and Cairo's links with the Gulf states, Israel and the United States," said one former Egyptian diplomat.

Speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of preparatory meetings for the two-day Islamic summit, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said he was optimistic that ties could grow closer.

"We are gradually improving. We have to be a little bit patient. I'm very hopeful about the expansion of the bilateral relationship," he said. Asked where he saw room for closer ties, he said: "Trade and economics."

Ahmadinejad's visit to Egypt follows Mursi's visit to Iran in August for a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement.

Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, head of the 1,000-year-old al-Azhar mosque and university, will meet Ahmadinejad at his offices in mediaeval Islamic Cairo, al-Azhar's media office said.

Salehi, the Iranian foreign Minister, stressed the importance of Muslim unity when he met Sheikh al-Tayeb at al-Azhar last month.

Egypt and Iran have taken opposite courses since the late 1970s. Egypt, under Mubarak's predecessor Anwar Sadat, concluded a peace treaty with Israel in 1979 and became a close ally of the United States and Europe. Iran from 1979 turned into a center of opposition to Western influence in the Middle East.

Symbolically, Iran named a street in Tehran after the Islamist who led the 1981 assassination of Sadat.

Egypt gave asylum and a state funeral to Iran's exiled Shah Reza Pahlavi, who was overthrown by the 1979 Iranian revolution. He is buried in a medieval Cairo mosque alongside his ex-brother-in-law, Egypt's last king, Farouk.

(Additional reporting by Ayman Samir and Alexander Diadosz; Editing by Andrew Roche and Paul Taylor)

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Afghanistan's Karzai confirms to leave power in 2014

OSLO: Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai confirmed Tuesday in Oslo that he plans to step down next year when his mandate expires.

"The question of me staying as the president beyond 2014 is out of the question," Karzai said when reporters asked about recent speculation that he was keen to stay on.

"Neither am I seeking a third term, nor does the constitution allow it. There will be an election and a new president will come," he said.

Karzai was elected in 2004, and re-elected in 2009 in a vote marred by accusations of fraud.

Afghanistan's next presidential election is scheduled for April 2014, just a few months before the end of NATO's mission.

Karzai has previously said he would not stay in power beyond 2014, including at a meeting with US President Barack Obama last month, amid some concern that he could try to cling to power.

During his visit to Oslo, Norway said it would continue to help the country until 2017, with annual aid of 750 million kroner (101 million euros, $137 million). Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, and one of the most corrupt.

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said the aid agreement -- which formalises previously-made pledges -- would depend on Afghan authorities' commitment to "good governance, the rule of law, human rights, transparency and democracy."

"We have zero tolerance for corruption," he stressed, noting that Oslo had suspended development aid in the past when funds had been misappropriated.

Afghanistan, the second-biggest recipient of Norwegian aid, is ranked as one of the most corruption-riddled countries in the world alongside North Korea and Somalia, according to graft watchdog Transparency International.

-AFP/ac

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Hidden 'radio' buttons discovered in Apple's iOS 6.1

There's a hint that Apple has something new in the pipeline, and the company appears to have tucked it away inside the latest version of its iOS software.

Discovered last night within a freshly-jailbroken iPad, are a set of buttons and code references for "radio," a feature found in
iTunes on Macs and PCs, but not on the
iPad or iPhone. Making things more interesting is another button suggesting you can purchase from the radio feature, presumably from iTunes.

That buttons, which were spotted by 9to5Mac, hint at Apple's much-rumored radio service, a product that will let people stream music much like they do on the popular Pandora, but with deep ties to Apple's iTunes library. Rumors that Apple has been working on such a service have floated for years, but heated up last year as talks with labels advanced.

The discovery follows a high-profile jailbreak of
iOS 6.1, the system software Apple released just last week. A team of developers came up with a tool that gives users deep system level access to do things like install applications from third-party app stores, change the look and feel of iOS, and add new software features.

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Buyout firm Silver Lake purchases Dell for $24.4B

ROUND ROCK, Tex. Slumping personal computer maker Dell is bowing out of the stock market in a $24.4 billion buyout that represents the largest deal of its kind since the Great Recession dried up the financing for such risky maneuvers.

The complex agreement announced Tuesday will allow Dell's management to attempt a company turnaround away from the glare and financial pressures of Wall Street. Dell stockholders will be paid $13.65 per share to leave the company on its own. That's better than $11 level the stock was hovering at before word of the buyout talks trickled out last month, but a steep markdown from the shares' price of $26 less than five years ago.

Once the sale to a group of investors that includes investment firm Silver Lake is finalized, Dell's stock will stop trading on the Nasdaq nearly 25 years after the Round Rock, Texas, company raised $30 million in an initial public offering of stock. Microsoft Corp. is investing in the deal with a $2 billion loan.

The company will solicit competing offers for 45 days.

The IPO and Dell's rapid growth through the 1990s turned its eponymous founder Michael Dell into one of the world's richest people. His fortune is currently estimated at about $16 billion. Michael Dell, who owns nearly 16 percent stake in the company, will remain the CEO after the sale closes and will contribute his existing stake in Dell to the new company.

"I believe this transaction will open an exciting new chapter for Dell, our customers and team members," he said in a statement. "We can deliver immediate value to stockholders, while we continue the execution of our long-term strategy and focus on delivering best-in-class solutions to our customers as a private enterprise."

Dell's sale is the highest-priced leveraged buyout of a technology company, surpassing the $17.6 billion paid for Freescale Semiconductor in 2006.

The deal is the largest leveraged buyout of any type since November 2007 when Alltel Corp. sold for $25 billion to TPG Capital and a Goldman Sachs subsidiary. Within a few months, the U.S. economy had collapsed into what would be its worst recession since World War II.

Leveraged buyouts refer to deals that saddle the acquired company with the debt taken on to finance the purchase.

Dell's decision to go private is a reflection of the tough times facing the personal computer industry as more technology spending flows toward smartphones and tablet computers. PC sales fell 3.5 percent last year, according to the research group Gartner Inc., the first annual decline in more than a decade. What's more, more tablet computers are expected to be sold this year than laptops.

The shift has weakened long-time stalwarts such as Dell Inc., fellow PC maker Hewlett-Packard Co., PC chip maker Intel Corp. and PC software maker Microsoft Corp.

Like the others, Dell's revenue has been shriveling and its stock has been sinking amid worries that the company might not be able to regain its technological edge.

Both Dell and its larger rival, HP, are trying to revive their fortunes by expanding into business software and technology consulting, two niches that are more profitable than the fiercely competitive and currently shrinking PC industry.

The PC downturn has hurt Microsoft by reducing sales of its Windows operating system to makers of desktop and laptop machines. As the world's third largest PC maker, Dell is one of Microsoft's biggest customers.

By becoming a major Dell backer, Microsoft could gain more influence in the design of the devices running on a radically redesigned version of Windows that was released in late October. The closer ties with Dell, though, could poison Microsoft's relationship with HP, the largest PC maker, and other manufacturers that buy Windows and other software.

Michael Dell and his financial backers are betting it will be easier to engineer a turnaround without having to pander to the stock market's fixation on whether the company's earnings are growing from one quarter to the next.

Taking the company private is a major risk, however. It will leave Dell Inc. without publicly traded shares to entice and reward talented workers or to help buy other companies.

As part of its shift toward business software and technology services, Dell already has spent $9 billion on acquisitions in the past three years.

Leveraged buyouts also require companies to earmark some of their incoming cash to reduce the debt taken on as part of the process of going private. The obligations mean Dell will have less money to invest in innovation and expansion of its business.

The buyout will mark a new era in another technology company that began humbly and matured into a juggernaut.

With just $1,000, Michael Dell started his company as PCs Limited in his dorm room as a freshman at the University of Texas at Austin. He would go on to revolutionize the personal computer industry by providing a way for companies and consumers to order custom-made machines at a reasonable price first on the phone, then on the Internet.

Initially valued at $85 million in its 1988, Dell went on a growth tear that turned the company into a stock market star. At the height of the dot-com boom in 2000, Dell reigned as the world's largest PC maker with a market value of more than $100 billion.

But Dell began to falter as other PC makers were able to lower their costs. At the same time, HP and other rivals forged retail relationships that gave them the advantage of being able to showcase their machines in stores where consumers could check them out before buying. By 2006, HP had supplanted Dell as the world's largest PC maker.

With its revenue slipping, Dell's market value had fallen to $19 billion before the mid-January leaks about the buyout negotiations.

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Syrian opposition chief says offers Assad peaceful exit

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib urged President Bashar al-Assad on Monday to respond to his initiative for dialogue, saying it was aimed at ending the bloodshed and helping "the regime leave peacefully".

Speaking after meeting senior Russian, U.S. and Iranian officials at the weekend, Alkahtib said none of them had a plan to end the civil war and Syrians must find their own resolution.

"The big powers have no vision ... Only the Syrian people can decide on the solution," the Syrian National Coalition leader told Al Jazeera Television.

The moderate Islamist preacher announced last week he was prepared to talk to Assad's representatives. Although he set several conditions, the move broke a taboo on contacts with authorities and dismayed many in opposition ranks who insist on Assad's departure as a precondition for negotiation.

Alkhatib said it was not "treachery" to seek dialogue to end a conflict in which more than 60,000 people have been killed, 700,000 have been driven from their country and millions more are homeless and hungry.

"The regime must take a clear stand (on dialogue) and we say we will extend our hand for the interest of people and to help the regime leave peacefully," he told the Qatar-based channel. "It is now in the hands of the regime."

Assad announced last month what he said were plans for reconciliation talks to end the violence but - in a speech described by U.N. Syria envoy Lakhdar Brahimi as narrow and uncompromising - he said there would be no dialogue with people he called traitors or "puppets made by the West".

Syria's uprising erupted 22 months ago with largely peaceful protests, escalating into a civil war that pits mainly Sunni Muslim rebels against Assad, who is from Syria's Alawite minority and whose family has ruled Syria for 42 years.

POWERS DIVIDED

The violence has divided major powers, with Russia and China blocking U.N. Security Council draft resolutions backed by the United States, European Union and Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states that could have led to U.N. sanctions on Assad. Shi'ite Iran has remained his strongest regional backer.

Alkhatib said that the international deadlock meant that only Syrians could stave off further humanitarian disaster.

"We will find a solution, there are many keys," he said. "If the regime wants to solve (the crisis), it can take part in it. If it wants to get out and get the people out of this crisis, we will all work together for the interest of the people and the departure of the regime."

One proposal under discussion was the formation of a transitional government, Alkhatib said, without specifying how he thought it could come about. World powers agreed a similar formula seven months ago but then disagreed over whether that could allow Assad to stay on as head of state.

Activists reported clashes between the army and rebel fighters to the east of Damascus on Monday and heavy shelling of rebel-held areas of the central city of Homs. The Jobar neighborhood, on the southwestern edge of Homs, was hit by more than 100 rockets on Monday morning, one activist said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 180 people had been killed across the country on Sunday, including 114 rebel fighters and soldiers. Sunday's death toll also included 28 people killed in the bombardment of a building in the Ansari district of the northern city of Aleppo.

Assad has described the rebel fighters as foreign-backed Islamist terrorists and said a precondition for any solution is that Turkey and Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab states stop funding, sheltering and arming his foes.

Rebels and activists say Iran and the Lebanese Shi'ite military group Hezbollah have sent fighters to reinforce Assad's army - a charge that both deny.

ECONOMIC SUPPORT

"The army of Syria is big enough, they do not need fighters from outside," Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in Berlin on Monday.

"We are giving them economic support, we are sending gasoline, we are sending wheat. We are trying to send electricity to them through Iraq, we have not been successful."

Another Iranian official, speaking in Damascus after talks with Assad, said on Monday that Israel would regret an air strike against Syria last week, without spelling out whether Iran or its ally planned a military response.

"They will regret this recent aggression," said Saeed Jalili, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council.

Salehi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden all met Alkhatib in Munich at the weekend and portrayed his willingness to talk with Syrian authorities as a major step towards resolving the war.

But Alkhatib is under pressure from other members of the exiled leadership in Cairo for saying he would be willing to talk to Assad, albeit on condition that Assad releases 160,000 prisoners and issues passports to the tens of thousands who have fled to neighboring countries without travel documents.

Walid al-Bunni, a member of the Coalition's 12-member politburo, dismissed Alkhatib's meeting with Salehi.

"It was unsuccessful. The Iranians are unprepared to do anything that could help the causes of the Syrian Revolution," Bunni, a former political prisoner, told Reuters from Budapest.

Bunni said the Coalition was preparing a meeting of all its 70 members in Cairo to hear from Alkhatib about his diplomatic moves.

Alkhatib, whose family are custodians of the Umayyad Mosque in the historic centre of Damascus, is seen as a bulwark against the radical Islamist Salafist forces who wield heavy influence in the armed opposition.

(Additional reporting by Yeganeh Torbati in Dubai and Stephen Brown in Berlin; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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Aliwal Arts Centre to be launched in March 2013

SINGAPORE : The Aliwal Arts Centre will be launched in March 2013 as the next arts housing development under the Framework for Arts Spaces.

The framework comes under the National Arts Council's (NAC) plan to create a stronger link between infrastructure support and the different needs of artists.

The Goodman Arts Centre was rolled out in 2011 as a pilot project under the framework.

Since its opening, the centre has launched more than 200 programmes.

NAC has been working with government agencies and commercial developers to facilitate co-location of artists and arts groups in commercial developments.

One such project involves Very Special Arts taking up a space at Changi City Point Mall in 2011.

Another project involves the Singapore Dance Theatre moving into Bugis+ mall from early 2013.

NAC is discussing with partners like the People's Association on co-locating artists and arts groups in community spaces.

- CNA/ms

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BlackBerry Z10 off to 'solid start' in U.K., Canada -- analyst

BlackBerry Z10

(Credit:
Josh Miller/CNET)

The BlackBerry Z10 is off to a good start in several countries around the world, Jefferies analyst Peter Misek claims in a research note obtained by CNET.

"Our initial checks indicate that sales in the UK are off to a strong start," Misek wrote in his note to investors. "Some stores had lineups out front with widespread sell outs of the White Z10 and limited stock of the Black Z10. Also, our checks indicate that pre-orders in the UAE and Canada have had a solid start."

The U.K. seems to be BlackBerry's best market. Misek said that he has completed "initial checks," and found that Carphone Warehouse, a company that sells handsets, "is seeing widespread sellouts." U.K. carriers O2, Vodafone, Orange, and EE "are seeing robust demand," Misek said.

"We estimate sell-in to be at least several hundred thousand units," Misek wrote to investors. "To put that in perspective, the iPhone had first weekend sales of 5M+ in the U.S. The U.S. is five times larger so continued strong sales could bode very well for Blackberry."

BlackBerry announced the Z10 last week. The device runs its latest operating system,
BlackBerry 10, and comes with a full, 4.2-inch touchscreen. The handset will be available internationally first, and then come to the U.S.

Misek is also seeing strong Z10 performance elsewhere around the world. He reported that preorders in Canada are in the "tens of thousands" and could approach or exceed 100,000 units.

Still, Misek's findings are extremely preliminary and might not hint at future performance. The only way to handicap a smartphone's success is to give it some time on store shelves. For now, that's what the Z10 is lacking.

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