TSX ends flat as RIM buckles, gold miners bounce

Canada's main stock index ended little changed on Friday as gold miners gained on safe-haven buying amid U.S. budget uncertainty, while BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd plunged more than 20 percent.
The index's materials sector, which includes miners, rose 0.4 percent. Even though the price of gold was near its lowest level in four months, the gold-mining sub-sector added 0.9 percent as investors fretted over stalled U.S. budget talks that could throw Canada's largest trading partner back into recession.
"As our tiptoes are over the (U.S.) fiscal cliff and we're looking over the abyss, the markets are upset obviously, and this is sort of putting a damper on the stocks," said John Ing, president of Maison Placements Canada.
"But we've had a mixed reaction in Canada, mainly because the resources have been much better, like gold for example, which is hedging into the uncertainty (around the budget talks)," he said, noting gold miners had been under pressure for the last two weeks.
Miner Barrick Gold Corp edged up 0.2 percent to C$33.29. Centerra Gold Inc jumped more than 3 percent to C$9.10.
Gold miners are playing catch-up after underperforming throughout the year and could rise further in 2013, said Gavin Graham, president at Graham Investment Strategy.
Shares of RIM dropped 22.2 percent to C$10.86 on fears that a new fee structure for its high-margin services segment could put pressure on the business that has set the company apart from its competitors.
The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index <.gsptse> fell 3.01 points, or 0.02 percent, to end at 12,385.70. It gained 0.7 percent for the week.
Efforts to avoid the looming U.S. "fiscal cliff" were thrown into disarray on Friday with finger-pointing lawmakers fleeing Washington for Christmas vacations even as the year-end deadline for action edged ever closer.
Graham said that until a deal is reached in the U.S. budget talks, investors will avoid economically sensitive Canadian stocks and those most closely tied to the U.S. economy: auto parts manufacturers, forestry companies and resource stocks generally.
"The resource sectors in Canada, which is half of the index, is going to be adversely affected, correctly or not," he said.
"Chinese demand is likely to pick up somewhat now with the new leadership there but people will be focused on the U.S. given that it is still by far the most important export market for Canada."

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Google working on "X Phone", "X" tablet to take on rivals - WSJ

Google Inc is working with recently acquired Motorola on a handset codenamed "X-phone", aimed at grabbing market share from Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Google acquired Motorola in May for $12.5 billion to bolster its patent portfolio as its Android mobile operating system competes with rivals such as Apple and Samsung.
The Journal quoted the people saying that Motorola is working on two fronts: devices that will be sold by carrier partner Verizon Wireless, and on the X phone.
Motorola plans to enhance the X Phone with its recent acquisition of Viewdle, an imaging and gesture-recognition software developer. The new handset is due out sometime next year, the business daily said, citing a person familiar with the plans.
Motorola is also expected to work on an "X" tablet after the phone. Google Chief Executive Larry Page is said to have promised a significant marketing budget for the unit, the newspaper said quoting the persons.

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Instagram diverts attention from botched policy change with another new filter

Instagram messed up big time this week when it freaked everyone out with changes to its privacy policy related to licensing user photos for advertisements. After days of backlash, Instagram reverted back to its old terms of service. While the damage has already been done, Instagram is hoping a new update to its iOS and Android app will silence everyone. Instagram 3.4.0 adds a new filter called “Mayfair” that adds another hint of lavender to images and brightens up the center, support for 25 languages, photo sharing from any album, Facebook (FB) iOS 6 integration and various bug fixes. Version 3.4.0 comes hot off last week’s update that added the new “Willow” filter and numerous UI tweaks. Is a new filter enough to keep users from flocking to the new Flickr or Twitter apps; both with built-in filters? Instagram certainly hopes so.

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Suicide bombers attack mobile phone firms in Nigeria

Two suicide car bombers attacked the offices of mobile phone operators India's Airtel and South Africa's MTN on Saturday in Nigeria's northern city of Kano, killing themselves but no civilians, police said.
Islamist sect Boko Haram has previously targeted phone firms, blowing up telephone masts and offices, saying the companies help the security forces catch its members.
"The one who hit the Airtel office was shot by military men before the bomb exploded ... at the MTN office the car rammed into the fence but no civilians were killed," Ibrahim Idris, the chief of police in Kano, told Reuters.
Airtel Nigeria's parent company Bharti Airtel, India's top cellphone operator, gave no immediate comment.
The national emergency agency confirmed the bombing and said it was not aware of any civilian casualties. The security forces have played down the death toll in previous bombings.
At least 2,800 people have died in fighting in the largely Muslim north since the sect launched an uprising against the government in 2009, watchdog Human Rights Watch says.
The sect wants to impose strict Islamic law on a country of 160 million people split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims.
The group has previously targeted churches on Christmas Day and security has been increased in all the major northern cities, although security experts say given the scale of Christian worship in Nigeria they cannot protect everyone.
Kano, Nigeria's second largest city after the southern commercial-hub Lagos, was the site of Boko Haram's most lethal attack which killed at least 186 people in January in coordinated bombings and shootings.

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2 bombers target mobile phone firms in Nigeria

Authorities blame a radical Islamist sect for twin suicide car bombings targeting two major mobile phone companies, an official said Saturday, blacking out a top operator's network in most of Nigeria's northern commercial hub.
A suicide bomber drove an explosive-laden car into the facilities of the Nigerian subsidiary of Bharti Airtel Ltd. of India at about 8 a.m. in the city of Kano, said Capt. Iweha Ikedichi, who speaks for a special taskforce deployed in Kano to reduce the threat of the Islamic rebels known as Boko Haram. The attack left an Airtel worker injured, authorities said. It also damaged a switch station, said James Eze, an Airtel spokesman. He said the company was still assessing how bad the damage was, but declined to comment further.
Switch stations control the regional mobile phone network and if they are seriously damaged, the entire network could go down. An Airtel staff who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press said the targeted switch station covered six northern states, including Kano. But while Airtel's network appeared to be down across Kano Sunday, calls to lines in some of the other states went through.
At about the same time as the Airtel attack, another bomber targeted the facilities of the Nigerian subsidiary of South Africa-based MTN Group Ltd., about two miles (three kilometers) away. That attack was botched by security officers who shot the bomber, causing an explosion at the company's gate, Ikedichi said.
The target of the foiled attack was MTN's switch station, said Funmilayo Omogbenigun, spokeswoman for Nigeria's largest cell phone network provider.
Authorities suspect the Boko Haram sect is behind the attacks. The group is held responsible for more than 770 deaths this year alone, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press. Boko Haram's campaign of bombings and shootings has targeted mosques, churches, schools, universities and government buildings. But, four months ago, the group broadened its scope by attacking mobile phone towers for the first time.
In September, a series of attacks damaged more than 31 towers operated by all the major mobile phone providers in the country. Other attacks have occurred since then, further straining the one link Nigeria relies on for communication in a country with very few landlines. While no one claimed responsibility for the attacks, the Islamist sect had threatened mobile phone companies earlier in the year, warning that they would be targeted for cooperating with the government to flush out its members.
In Nigeria, Africa's most populous country with more than 160 million people, mobile phones serve as a valuable lifeline in both cities and rural communities. Landlines remain almost nonexistent, as the state-run telephone company has collapsed and repeated efforts to privatize it have failed. More 87 million mobile phone lines were in use in 2009, according to estimates.
"Never would we have expected that telecommunications could be targeted," said Damien Udeh, a spokesman for the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria. "It portends a dangerous situation for everybody, especially government.

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FBI question Benghazi consulate attack suspect

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — After months of asking, agents from the FBI questioned the only known suspect in the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that killed four diplomats, the suspect's Tunisian lawyer told The Associated Press Saturday.
Ali Harzi, a Tunisian, was detained in Turkey and extradited to Tunisia in October where authorities have said he is "strongly suspected" of being involved in the attack.
His lawyer, Anwar Oued-Ali, added that Harzi was also questioned about an attack on the U.S. embassy in Tunisia, a few days later, suggesting the American authorities are looking into if there is a connection between the two attacks.
The Sept. 11 assault by armed men in the Libyan city of Benghazi killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stephens and three other American diplomats. Members of an Islamist militia, Ansar al-Sharia are suspected in the strike, but there has been little progress in the Libya-based investigation into the attack.
A few days later, a mob attacked the U.S. embassy in Tunis, destroying property and an American school in the area, resulting in four deaths. The attack was believed to be instigated by a local group also called Ansar al-Sharia, but it is unclear if it is connected to the Libyan organization.
In early November, Republican senators Lindsey Graham and Saxby Chambliss announced that Tunisia had agreed to allow the FBI to interview Harzi, but it took another month and a half to organize the interview due to legal questions over any infringements on Tunisian sovereignty.
In the end, three FBI investigators using a Moroccan translator posed questions to Harzi for three hours through the Tunisian judge presiding over the case.
Harzi's defense team was not allowed to attend the questioning on the grounds that he was being interviewed as a "witness" rather than a defendant.
Harzi is being charged by the Tunisians for "membership in a terrorist organization." Harzi denies the charges.

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Rebels threaten to storm 2 Syrian Christian towns

BEIRUT (AP) — Rebels have threated to storm two predominantly Christian towns in central Syria if residents do not "evict" government troops they say are using the towns as a base to attack nearby areas.
A video released by rebels showed Rashid Abul-Fidaa, who identified himself as the commander of the Ansar Brigade for Hama province, calling on locals in Mahrada and Sqailbiyeh to rise up against President Bashar Assad's forces or prepare for an assault.
"Assad's gangs in the cities are shelling our villages with mortars and rockets destroying our homes, killing our children and displacing our people," said Abdul-Fidaa, who wore an Islamic headband and was surrounded by gunmen. "You should perform your duty by evicting Assad's gangs," he said. "Otherwise our warriors will storm the hideouts of the Assad gangs."
Abdul-Fidaa accused regime forces of taking positions in the two towns in order to "incite sectarian strife" between Christians and the predominantly Sunni opposition. Assad belongs to the Alawite minority sect, an off-shoot of Shiite Islam.
The threat comes just two days after a U.N. team investigating human rights abuses in Syria accused anti-Assad militants of hiding among the civilian population, triggering strikes by government artillery and the air force.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the activist group which reported the rebel ultimatum on Saturday, said such an attack by rebels could force thousands of Christians from their homes.
Russia's foreign minister, meanwhile, said that Moscow would welcome any country's offer of a safe haven to Assad, but underlined that Moscow itself has no intention of giving him shelter if he steps down.
Sergei Lavrov also said that Syria has consolidated its chemical weapons into one or two locations to protect them from a rebel onslaught. Russia, which has military advisers training Syria's armed forces, has kept close watch over Damascus's chemical arsenal, Lavrov added.
Syria refuses to confirm or deny if it has chemical weapons but is believed to have nerve agents as well as mustard gas. It also possesses Scud missiles capable of delivering them.
Concerns over the arsenal have escalated as the Assad regime suffers losses on the battlefield. U.S. intelligence officials have said it may be readying chemical weapons and could be desperate enough to use them. Both Israel and the U.S. have also expressed concerns the weapons could fall into militant hands if the regime crumbles.
Syria's conflict started 21 months ago as an uprising against Assad, whose family has ruled the country for four decades. But the bloody crackdown that followed led rebels to take up arms, and the ensuing fighting transformed into a civil war. According to activists, more than 40,000 people have been killed since March 2011.
Christians, who make up about 10 percent of Syria's population, say they are particularly vulnerable to the violence sweeping the country of 22 million people. They are fearful that Syria will become another Iraq, with Christians caught in the crossfire between rival Islamic groups.
Clashes between troops and rebels in the central city of Homs, Syria's third largest, have already displaced tens of thousands of Christians, most of whom either fled to the relatively safe coastal areas or to neighboring Lebanon.
Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the Observatory, said some Christians and Alawites have also left Hama province in the past several days to escape violence. He said some of them found shelter in the coastal city of Tartus.
In Damascus, the new head of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch said that Christians in Syria had deep roots in the country and were not part of the conflict. Speaking to reporters in the capital, Patriarch John X. Yazigi, urged rival factions to negotiate a settlement.
Violence continued elsewhere in the country on Saturday.
The Observatory said a car bomb went off in the Damascus neighborhood of Qaboun, killing at least five people and wounding others. A Syrian official in the capital confirmed the blast but had no immediate words on casualties.
Elsewhere, the Syrian army said in a statement carried on state-run TV that it had repelled a rebel attack on a military base that killed a regimental commander in the Damascus suburb of Chebaa.
And in Damascus, the state-run news agency SANA said gunmen assassinated Haider al-Sammoudi, a cameraman for the government's TV station. Several journalists working for state media have been assassinated over the past months.
In another development, 11 rebel groups said they have formed a new coalition, the Syrian Islamic Front.
A statement issued by the new group, dated Dec. 21 and posted on a militant website Saturday, described the group as "a comprehensive Islamic front that adopts Islam as a religion, doctrine, approach and conduct."
Several rebel groups have declared their own coalitions in Syria, including an "Islamic state" in the embattled northern city of Aleppo.
The statement said the new group will work to avoid differences or disputes with the other Islamic groups.
Syrian authorities meanwhile handed over to Beirut three Lebanese citizens who were killed last month in a clash with Syrian troops shortly after they crossed the border. Syria has so far returned 10 bodies to the Lebanese authorities and says it has no more.

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Egypt's vice president quits

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's state TV says Vice President Mahmoud Mekki has resigned.
Mekki's Saturday resignation was announced with more than five hours to go of voting in the second and final phase of a referendum on a disputed, Islamist-backed constitution. Mekki, a career judge, has said he intends to quit once the charter is adopted. The new constitution eliminates the post of vice president.
However, a statement by Mekki read on state TV hinted that the motive of his hurried departure could be linked to the policies of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
He said he first submitted his resignation last month but events forced him to stay on.
"I have realized a while ago that the nature of politics don't suit my professional genesis as a judge," he wrote.

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Ex-Tunisian dictator's property goes under hammer

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisian authorities are putting property confiscated from ousted Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali up for auction. That includes a pair of miniature gold sphinxes, a diamond-encrusted pen and a staggering 39 luxury cars.
Officials hope the sale, which was inaugurated by Tunisia's Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali in Tunis Saturday, will fetch some 20 million dinar ($12.9 million) for the state.
One of the rarities up for grabs is a super-pricy Mercedes that belonged to Ben Ali's nephew. Mohammed Lassaad Hamayed of Tunisia's confiscation committee calls the car "a handmade gem made of carbon fibers that costs more than €2 million ($2.6 million)."
He says "only Mohamed VI (the King of Morocco) has a similar one."
Ben Ali was ousted by a popular uprising in January 2011.

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Egypt's central bank governor quits

CAIRO (AP) — State television says Egypt's central bank governor has resigned.
Farouq el-Oqdah's resignation is the second such high profile move on Saturday. Earlier on the day, Vice President Mahmoud Mekki resigned, saying he realized that politics did not suit his professional background as a judge.
The brief TV report did not say why el-Oqdah quit, but it ends days of media speculations about his intentions. Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and his Prime Minister Hesham Kandil met with el-Oqdah earlier this week in what media reports said was an attempt to dissuade him from leaving.
His departure comes at a time when Egypt's pound has been losing value against the U.S. dollar and the postponement of a deal with the IMF for a much needed loan of $4.8 billion.

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