BBC News - US banks agree $25bn mortgage settlement

Five of the biggest US banks have agreed to provide $25bn (£16bn) to homeowners to settle claims over improper foreclosure practices.

Almost 11 million Americans owe more than their homes are worth

The deal, struck with the US government and most US states, follows allegations of abusive practices by lenders during the country's housing collapse.

The banks involved are Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase and Ally Financial.

President Barack Obama said that homeowners had not been treated fairly.

Settlement terms

"Many companies that handled these foreclosures didn't give people a fighting chance to hold on to their homes," he said.

"In many cases they didn't even verify that these foreclosures were actually legitimate."

He added that the deal would "speed relief to the hardest hit homeowners in some of the most abusive practices of the mortgage industry", saying this was the first step in turning the page on an "era of recklessness".

The settlement follows a year of wrangling and is the biggest struck between the US government and a single industry since 1998.

The deal will provide $3bn of relief for borrowers who are currently on repayments but who cannot refinance their loans because they are larger than the value of their homes.

It will also give $17bn in principal reductions to those who are behind on their payments and at risk of default, and provide about $2,000 in compensation for those whose homes have been foreclosed.

The five banks involved will contribute relative to their share of the market, and other banks could join the programme, increasing the size of the pot.

By settling, the five banks will avoid civil federal lawsuits. However, they are still exposed to the possibility of litigation from states or individuals.

They will also be subject to tighter regulation of foreclosure practices.

All US states except Oklahoma were involved in the agreement, which will last for three years.

Robo-signing scandal

The abuses happened after the US housing bubble burst five years ago.

From 2006, when the American property market peaked, house prices are down by a third and almost 11 million Americans owe more than their homes are worth.

Many companies processing foreclosures - or repossession orders - failed to verify documents.

Some employees signed papers they had not read or used fake signatures to speed up the process, an action dubbed "robo-signing".

Attorney General Eric Holder said the deal represented the "latest step forward in righting the wrongs that led to our nation's housing-market collapse and economic crisis".

Californian borrowers will receive almost half of the $25bn settlement, which does not include mortgages originated by the giant mortgage backers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

California's Attorney General, Kamala Harris, said she would try to reach a deal with the two lenders.

"I will continue to fight for principal reductions for the approximately 60% of California homeowners whose loans are owned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," she said.

BBC News - Greece bailout: Coalition fails to agree cuts

Greek PM Lucas Papademos has failed to secure the support of his coalition for a raft of new austerity measures, after more than seven hours of talks.

The party leaders only received the text of the draft proposals on Wednesday morning

He had met officials from three parties to try to secure a deal leading to a fresh bailout package.

The main stumbling block in the crunch talks was proposed pension cuts, reports said.

Mr Papademos was said to be going directly to discuss the problem with EU and IMF officials.

They are representing the so-called "troika" of bailout creditors - the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund - who had earlier agreed the draft proposals with the prime minister.

They are thought to include a 20% minimum wage reduction, pension cuts and the sacking of 15,000 public sector workers - and have prompted further mass protests.

Officials from Pasok, New Democracy and the far-right Laos party only received the 50-page text on Wednesday morning, reports said, after Mr Papademos agreed the deal with the troika on Tuesday night.

Pressure

According to Laos leader George Karatzaferis, the bulk of Wednesday's meeting was spent discussing the issue of supplementary pensions, which had reportedly been in line for a 15% cut.

Mr Papademos's office said Mr Karatzaferis had expressed "serious reservations" during the meeting.

As he left, Mr Karatzaferis told reporters: "I made my positions clear from the beginning... I wanted to support Mr Samaras (New Democracy leader) on that issue (pensions)."

Antonis Samaras said he had felt obliged to bargain hard.

"We want to ease the people's suffering,'' he said.

Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos is due to travel to Brussels early on Thursday for a meeting with Eurozone finance ministers later in the day.

Observers say there is huge pressure for the Greek political leaders to strike a deal prior to that meeting.

But the BBC's Mark Lowen, in Athens, says the package of cuts and reforms would go down very badly with an austerity weary Greek nation.

According to unconfirmed reports in the Greek media, the measures were aimed at trimming 3.2bn euros (£2.7bn; $4.2bn):

• Minimum wage to be cut by 22% from 751 euros per month to 600 euros.
• Supplementary pensions to be reduced by 15% but basic pensions also likely to be cut
• 15,000 public sector jobs to go by end of 2012
• But holiday bonuses, known as 13th and 14th month salaries, expected to be saved

On Tuesday night, a spokesman for the International Institute of Finance (IIF) which is negotiating on behalf of the private creditors said the talks had been constructive and its three officials were returning to Paris for further consultations.

As part of Greece's new 130bn euro ($170bn; £110bn) bailout deal - Greece's second international bailout - Mr Papademos and Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos have also been engaged in a separate strand of negotiations with private creditors over a write-off of up to 70% of the value of the money owed by the Greek government.

BBC News - Lake Vostok drilling team claims breakthrough

Vostok station is one of the most difficult places to work on Earth

Russian scientists are reporting success in their quest to drill into Lake Vostok, a huge body of liquid water buried under the Antarctic ice.

It is the first time such a breakthrough has been made into one of the more than 300 sub-glacial lakes known to exist on the White Continent.

Researchers believe Vostok can give them some fresh insights into the frozen history of Antarctica.

They also hope to find microbial lifeforms that are new to science.

"This fills my soul with joy," said Valery Lukin, from Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) in St Petersburg, which has been overseeing the project,

"This will give us the possibility to biologically evaluate the evolution of living organisms... because those organisms spent a long time without contact with the atmosphere, without sunlight," he was quoted as saying in a translation of national media reports by BBC Monitoring.

The drilling project has taken years to plan and implement. The lake's location in the heart of East Antarctic Ice Sheet is one of the most inhospitable places on Earth.

It is the place where thermometers recorded the lowest ever temperature on the planet - minus 89C on 21 July 1983.

Vostok Station was first set up in 1956. However, it was only in the 1970s when, with the help of radar, British scientists first started to suspect there might be something underneath all the ice.

Further geophysical survey data then established the true scale of the sub-glacial feature.

With an area of 15,000 square km and with depths reaching more than 800m, Lake Vostok is similar in size to Lake Baikal in Siberia or Lake Ontario in North America.

More than 300 such bodies of water have now been identified across Antarctica. They are kept liquid by geothermal heat and pressure, and are part of a vast and dynamic hydrological network at play under the ice sheet.

Some of the lakes are connected, and will exchange water. But some may be completely cut off, in which case their water may have been resident in one place for thousands if not millions of years. Russian researchers will try to establish just how isolated Lake Vostok has been. If it has been sealed then micro-organisms new to science are very likely to have evolved in the lake.

Nonetheless, there will be concerns about introducing contamination, and there have been criticisms of the methods used by the Vostok drilling team.

Vladimir Chuprov, from Greenpeace Russia, commented: "There is a set of risks which can damage this relic lake and some of them are connected with polluting the lake with the drilling fluids, as well as other stuff that can get into this unique lake."

The drilling team counters that is has taken the necessary precautions.

The Vostok project is one of a number of similar ventures being undertaken on the White Continent.

The British Antarctic Survey (Bas) is hoping to begin its effort to drill into Lake Ellsworth in West Antarctica later this year. An American crew is targeting Lake Whillans, also in the West.

"It is an important milestone that has been completed and a major achievement for the Russians because they've been working on this for years," Professor Martin Siegert, the principal investigator on the Bas-Ellsworth project said.

"The Russian team share our mission to understand subglacial lake environments and we look forward to developing collaborations with their scientists and also those from the US and other nations, as we all embark on a quest to comprehend these pristine, extreme environments," he told AP.

The projects are of particular fascination to astrobiologists, who study the origins and likely distribution of life across the Universe.

Conditions in these Antarctic lakes may not be that different from those in the liquid water bodies thought to exist under the surfaces of icy moons in the outer Solar System.

Places like Europa, which orbits Jupiter, and Enceladus, which circles Saturn, may be among the best places beyond Earth to go to look for alien organisms.

BBC News - Syria crisis: Gulf Arab states expel Syrian ambassadors

Gulf Arab states say they are expelling Syrian ambassadors in their countries and recalling their envoys from Syria.

BBC's Paul Wood, in Homs, says Russian-made tanks are firing on residents

The Gulf Cooperation Council said Syria had rejected Arab attempts to solve the crisis and end 11 months of bloodshed.

The US closed its embassy in Syria on Monday, and several European countries have recalled their ambassadors.

The moves came as Syrian government forces continued their fierce assault on the restive city of Homs, and Russian officials visited Damascus.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called for a solution to the crisis based on Arab League initiatives, days after Russia and China vetoed a UN resolution on Syria.

After meeting Mr Lavrov, Syrian media quoted President Bashar al-Assad as saying he was willing to co-operate with "any efforts towards stability".

Separately Russia's ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, denied reports that he had threatened Qatar's prime minister during talks at the UN last week.

Someone was trying to drive a wedge between Russia and the Arab world, he said.

'Operations continue'

The BBC's Paul Wood - one of the very few foreign reporters in Homs - says the Syrian army resumed mortar attacks and heavy machine-gun fire after daybreak.

He says Russian-made tanks have been seen close to the city centre, but there is no sign so far of the ground assault feared by many residents.

Hundreds are reported to have died since the shelling of the city began on Friday. At least 95 people were killed on Monday alone, activists say.

At least 15 were killed on Tuesday, they said.

The Interior Ministry said it would continue its operations in the city against "terrorist groups" until "order" was restored, in a statement quoted by state news agency Sana.

There were reports of more fighting in Hama, another flashpoint city, and the town of Zabadani near Damascus.

'Honest efforts aborted'

A Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) statement said: "Members have decided to withdraw their ambassadors from Syria and ask at the same time for all the ambassadors of the Syrian regime to leave immediately."

There was "no point in them staying after the Syrian regime rejected all attempts and aborted all honest Arab efforts to solve this crisis and end the bloodshed", it added.

Member states "follow with sorrow and anger, the increase in killing and violence in Syria, which has not spared children, old people or women with heinous acts that at best can be described as mass slaughter".

The GCC said it would urge all other Arab states to adopt "decisive measures" when the Arab League meets next week.

The decision comes a day after the US closed its embassy in Damascus and pulled out all remaining staff.

The UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy have also recalled their ambassadors.

Mr Lavrov called for a solution to the crisis based on initiatives put forward by the Arab League on 2 November 2011 to end the violence, though he has given no indication that Russia supports the league's more recent call for Mr Assad to step down.

He said Damascus was ready for a larger Arab mission to monitor peace efforts, and would set a date for a constitutional referendum.

The Arab League deployed an observer mission to Syria in December but suspended it in late January amid worsening violence.

Later, Syrian state news agency Sana said Mr Assad "reiterated Syria's willingness to work with all efforts towards stability in Syria".

But US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Washington would withhold judgement on Mr Lavrov's visit.

"You can understand that the international community as a whole would be pretty sceptical of, instead of focusing on ending the violence, what we seem to have is a re-upping of this same offer that Assad has been making for months and months and months," she said.

The Syrian opposition, meanwhile, has voiced strong criticism of the stalemate at the UN, saying the Russian and Chinese vetoes on Saturday encouraged the Syria government to step up the assault on Homs.

Mr Lavrov has said Western reaction condemning Russia's veto on Saturday bordered on "hysteria".

Moscow has said the draft - which backed an Arab League peace plan calling for President Assad to hand over power - would have forced regime change on Syria.

The Syrian government, which has been fighting an uprising against President Assad's rule since March, says it is fighting foreign-backed armed gangs.

Thousands of former army soldiers have defected to the rebel side, forming the Free Syrian Army.

Syria's interior ministry said operations against "terrorist groups" would continue until "security and order are restored" in Homs.

Human rights groups and activists say more than 7,000 people have been killed by Syrian security forces since the uprising began last March.

The UN stopped estimating the death toll in Syria after it passed 5,400 in January, saying it was too difficult to confirm.

President Assad's government says at least 2,000 members of the security forces have been killed.

BBC News - Trendnet security cam flaw exposes video feeds on net

Feeds from thousands of Trendnet home security cameras have been breached, allowing any web user to access live footage without needing a password.

One user uploaded a montage of what he said were Trendnet feeds to alert the media to the problem

Internet addresses which link to the video streams have been posted to a variety of popular messageboard sites.

Users have expressed concern after finding they could view children's bedrooms, among other locations.

US-based Trendnet says it is in the process of releasing updates to correct a coding error introduced in 2010.

It said it had emailed customers who had registered affected devices to alert them to the problem.

However, a spokesman told the BBC that "roughly 5%" of purchasers had registered their cameras and it had not yet issued a formal media release - despite being aware of the problem for more than three weeks.

"We first became aware of this on 12 January," said Zak Wood, Trendnet's director of global marketing.

"As of this week we have identified 26 [vulnerable] models. (In) seven of the models, the firmware has been tested and released.

"We anticipate to have all of the revised firmware available this week. We are scrambling to discover how the code was introduced and at this point it seems like a coding oversight."

Mr Wood added that the California-based firm estimated that "fewer than 1,000 units" might be open to this threat in the UK, but could not immediately provide an exact global tally beyond saying that it was "most likely less than 50,000".

Feed links

Tech news website The Verge first publicised the issue last week after discovering a blog which had published details of the vulnerability on 10 January.

The author discovered that after setting up one of the cameras with a password, its video stream became accessible to anyone who typed in the correct net address.

In each case, this consisted of the user's IP address followed by an identical sequence of 15 characters.

The writer then showed how the Shodan search engine - which specialises in finding online devices - could be used to discover cameras vulnerable to the flaw.

"Last I ran this there was something like 350 vulnerable devices that were available," the author wrote at the time.

However, it appears that others then took advantage of the technique to expose other links and uploaded them to the net.

Within two days, a list of 679 web addresses had been posted to one site, and others followed - in some cases listing the alleged Google Maps locations associated with each camera.

Messages on one forum included: "Someone caught a guy in denmark (traced to ip) getting naked in the bathroom." Another said: "I think this guy is doing sit-ups."

One user wrote "baby spotted", causing another to comment: "I feel like a paedophile watching this."

Some screenshots have also been uploaded.

Warning users

The firm - whose slogan is "networks that people trust" - said it had halted shipments of affected products to retailers and that any delivery received since the start of this month should be safe. However, it said that items delivered at an earlier date might need a firmware update.

"We are just getting to that point to be able to succinctly convey more information to the public who would be concerned," said Mr Wood.

"We are planning an official release of information to the public concerning this, but in advance I can tell you that this week we are targeting to have firmware to all affected models."

At the time of interview, Trendnet's home page and its press release section made no mention of the problem.

However, a warning was lated added to its front page linking to a statement that says: "It is Trendnet's understanding that video from select Trendnet IP cameras may be accessed online in real time. Upon awareness of the issue, Trendnet initiated immediate actions to correct and publish updated firmware which resolves the vulnerability."

BBC News - Four telescope link-up creates world's largest mirror

Astronomers have created the world's largest virtual optical telescope, linking four telescopes in Chile so that they operate as a single device.

The Paranal Observatory is located 2,635m above sea level

The telescopes of the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory form a virtual mirror of 130m (424ft) in diameter.

A previous attempt to link the telescopes last March failed.

Thursday's link-up was the system's scientific verification - the final step before scientific work starts.

Linking all four units of the VLT will give scientists a much more detailed look at the Universe than previous experiments using just two or three telescopes to create a virtual mirror.

The process that links separate telescopes together is known as interferometry.

In this mode, the VLT becomes the biggest ground-based optical telescope on Earth.

Besides creating a gigantic virtual mirror, interferometry also greatly improves the telescope's spatial resolution and zooming capabilities.

The VLT is one of several telescopes in the Atacama Desert set up by the European Southern Observatory (Eso).

Eso is an international research organisation headquartered in Munich, Germany, and sponsored by 15 member countries.

The combination of four units of the Very Large Telescope facility creates a virtual 130m-wide mirror

Vital milestone

Even prior to the start of the operation, as the domes of the four VLT units opened on the desert mountaintop, excitement filled the Paranal Observatory's tiny control room.

It was going to be a special night, said one of the astronomers.

The head of instrumentation at Paranal, Frederic Gonte, called the event a "milestone in our quest for uncovering secrets of the Universe".

"It's an extremely important step because now we know that we're ready to do real science," he tld BBC News.

"From now on, we'll be able to observe things we were not able to observe before."

To link the VLT units, the team of international astronomers and engineers used an instrument called Pionier, which replaces a multitude of mirrors with a single optical microchip.

Although the first attempt to combine the four telescopes occurred in March 2011, it did not really work, said Jean-Philippe Berger, a French astronomer involved in the project.

But this time, it was already pretty clear that all the instruments were working correctly, he added.

"Last time, the atmospheric conditions and vibrations in the system were so bad that the data was just worthless," he recalled. "We stopped after half an hour knowing that it wouldn't improve.

"So, this attempt is the real first one to carry out observations for several hours straight to test the system in different conditions."

From now on, the system will be offered to the astronomical community, he added - any astronomer working at Paranal or visiting the observatory will be able to use it.

The first attempt to link up the telescopes in March 2011 failed

Gigantic mirror

VLTI, or the VLT Interferometer, has been used since 2002 to link together up to three VLT telescopes, as well as four small auxiliary telescopes that reside beside the big ones on the same platform at Cerra Paranal mountain, at 2,635m altitude.

The main component of an optical telescope is a mirror, and the light coming from a particular object being observed with separate telescopes - such as a star, a nebula or a galaxy - first gets reflected off individual mirrors.

And this is where the interferometer comes into play.

It directs the light underground into tunnels, where specific instruments compensate for the delay that inevitably exists when more than one telescope is used.

Once there is no delay, the light is combined into a single beam - and the image astronomers get is what would have been produced by one telescope with a gigantic mirror and a much better zoom.

In the case of the VLT, the zooming capability becomes almost 20 times better, said Mr Berger.

He explained that although the biggest "virtual" mirror of 130m in diameter has already been achieved by linking the two telescopes farthest from each other at Paranal, using all four units gives astronomers several advantages.

"The more telescopes the better - you want to generate a plane to fill that virtual mirror, to increase the efficiency to reconstruct an image, in order to observe more complex objects in the sky," he said.

"With two telescopes, you typically observe round stars, for which you're only interested in the diameter, or binary stars, where you can measure the separation between the two stars.

"With four telescopes, you can start thinking about triple stars or young stars surrounded by a protoplanetary disc - a disc of dust and gas that forms planets."

"Now, the zoo of objects accessible to us will be much bigger."

BBC News - Italy acts on Russia gas shortage amid Europe freeze

Italy has activated emergency measures to conserve gas supplies as freezing weather continues to grip the country and much of Europe.

Milan, like many parts of Italy, has suffered freezing conditions

Italy has been receiving reduced gas imports from Russia - one of its main suppliers - at the same time as gas consumption has soared.

Some power stations will switch to oil and some industrial customers will have gas supplies cut so homes stay warm.

EU officials deny there is an emergency caused by a drop in gas from Russia.

The Russian gas giant Gazprom - which supplies about a quarter of Europe's natural gas - says it is facing greater domestic demand because of the extreme cold.

Italian industry minister Corrado Passera described the situation as "critical" as government and industry officials held crisis talks in Rome. Further talks are planned for Tuesday.

At least 24 people have died in the rare conditions which have seen temperatures of -10C recorded in Milan and heavy snow closing Rome's Colosseum.

The government reassured the public on Monday that they would not face cold homes.

'Difficult moment'

"Families can feel at ease," said Claudio De Vincenti, undersecretary of economic development.

However, Italian energy supplier Eni urged private consumers to cut back on energy use as much as possible.

"This is a difficult moment," said spokesman Gianni di Giovanni.

Eni's chief executive Paolo Scaroni said: "We are in an emergency and we have reacted to this emergency by increasing gas imports from Algeria and from northern Europe via Switzerland.

"We won't have problems until Wednesday," he said on news channel Radio 24.

Italy imports about 90% of its gas needs and gets about 30% from Russia.

Meanwhile, Arctic conditions have continued to sweep Europe with authorities reporting more than 200 weather-related deaths.

Many of the victims have been homeless people in Ukraine and Poland.

Warsaw police officer Monika Golebiewska said new fatalities were being reported daily, said the AFP news agency.

In southern Bulgaria, four elderly people drowned in their homes in the south-eastern village of Biser when a dam wall broke unleashing a 2.5m (8ft) wall of icy water.

Switzerland reported -35.1C in the eastern Graubuenden canton and in the Czech Republic, the town of Kvilda recorded a winter low of -39.4C.

Lithuania reported the deaths of 12 more people over the weekend as a result of freezing conditions.

Forecasters says the icy conditions will last at least until the end of this week.