Secret U.S. effort aims to help dissidents: report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration is leading a global effort to establish "shadow" Internet and cellphone systems to help dissidents undermine authoritarian governments, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

The effort has quickened since former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's government shut down the country's Internet in the last days of his rule, said the Times report, which cited planning documents, classified diplomatic cables and sources.

The Internet has been used in recent months by anti-government protesters in North Africa and the Middle East to help coordinate demonstrations. Some governments have responded by disabling Internet access.

In one project, the U.S. State Department and Pentagon have spent at least $50 million to create an independent cellphone network in Afghanistan using towers on military bases in the country, the Times said, citing unnamed U.S. officials.

The operation is aimed at counteracting the Taliban insurgency's ability to shut down official Afghan services, the Times said.

The State Department is also financing creation of stealth wireless networks to enable activists to communicate beyond the reach of governments in countries like Iran, Syria and Libya, the Times said, citing participants in the projects.

Another project focuses on development of an "Internet in a suitcase" that could be smuggled across a border and deployed to allow wireless communication with a link to the global Internet, the Times reported.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is backing the U.S. effort, according to the report.

"We see more and more people around the globe using the Internet, mobile phones and other technologies to make their voices heard as they protest against injustice and seek to realize their aspirations," the Times quoted Clinton as saying in an email response to a query on the subject.

U.S. diplomats also are meeting with operatives who have been burying Chinese cellphones near the border with North Korea, where they can be dug up and used to make furtive calls, the Times reported.

(Writing by Paul Simao; Editing by Eric Beech)

Prince Philip marks 90th birthday with new title(Colonial Masters)

Prince Philip marks 90th birthday with new title

LONDON (AFP) – Britain's Prince Philip received a new royal title from his wife Queen Elizabeth II as a gift on his 90th birthday Friday, as the outspoken consort said he would finally scale back his workload.

The queen made him Lord High Admiral -- the titular head of the British Royal Navy and an office until now held by her -- partly in recognition of the promising seafaring career Philip gave up to spend a lifetime at her side.

The gruff patriarch, the longest-serving consort in British history, opted to spend his birthday with a typical lack of fuss, as he hosted a charity reception and chaired a conference for military colonels.

Despite remaining sprightly for his age, if not the dashing blond naval officer of more than five decades ago, Philip admitted he would now take a step back from official duties.

"I reckon I've done my bit. I want to enjoy myself a bit now, with less responsibility, less frantic rushing about, less preparation, less trying to think of something to say," he told the BBC.

"On top of that my memory's going, I can't remember names. I'm just sort of winding down."

There has been speculation he could hand over some of his duties to his grandson Prince William's new wife, Catherine.

Since marrying the then princess Elizabeth in 1947, Philip has carved out his own role supporting the monarch, accompanying her on visits around the world and jollying people up with his off-the-cuff remarks.

Some have been near the knuckle.

On a visit to China in 1986, he warned a group of British students: "If you stay here much longer, you'll all be slitty-eyed." And he told a British student who had trekked in Papua New Guinea in 1998: "You managed not to get eaten, then?".

But in a sign of the public affection for him, the palace revealed that almost 2,000 birthday cards had been sent to the duke from across the globe, including New Zealand and Australia, Italy, Poland, France and Germany.

Known officially as the Duke of Edinburgh, he is patron of some 800 organisations, covering fields including conservation, design and developing life skills among youngsters.

Prince Philippos of Greece and Denmark, a nephew of Greek king Constantine I, was born on a kitchen table on Corfu on June 10, 1921.

After a turbulent childhood, Lieutenant Mountbatten, as he became, married Elizabeth but his stellar progress in the Royal Navy, including service in World War II, was halted when his wife became queen in 1952.

He told ITV it was "disappointing", but "being married to the queen, it seemed to me that my first duty was to serve her in the best way I could".

Buckingham Palace said in a statement that the award of the title of Lord High Admiral was a "gift to The Duke of Edinburgh on the occasion of his 90th birthday", and that an official ceremony would take place at a later date.

The queen has held the title, which dates back to the 14th century, since 1964.

Canada also named Prince Philip an admiral and general in the Canadian Armed Forces for his birthday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said, praising his "significant contribution to our national life".

The queen is Canada's head of state.

On Friday Philip was also honoured with a 62-gun salute and the striking of a Royal Mint coin with his image on one side and the queen's on the other.

At the event he attended for the Royal National Institute for Deaf People he was given a pair of ear defenders.

But the official celebration of his birthday will be on Sunday when there will be a service at Saint George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, attended by the royal family, with a reception to follow.

"There is no ceremony or anything today. The main event will be on Sunday," a Buckingham Palace spokesman told AFP.

The duke showed the accolades were unlikely to go to his head, as he showed when he was asked by the BBC if he thought he had been successful.

"I couldn't care less. Who cares what I think about it? I mean it's ridiculous," he said, adding that he had figured out how to perform his role by "trial and error".

Paying tribute this week, Prime Minister David Cameron said Philip had been "a constant companion and a source of rock-solid strength" to the queen, adding that Britons found the duke's down-to-earth style "endearing".

5 New Rules of Real Estate

In the 20-odd years that I have been writing about real estate, I don't believe there has ever been a better time to buy a home.

Why? For starters, 30-year fixed-rate mortgages can be had for less than 5 percent. Recently, the 30-year rate hit 4.6 percent. If you want a 15-year mortgage, you can (for now) still get it for less than 4 percent. These are astounding rates. As Robert Fogel, a Nobel prize-winning economist from the University of Chicago, recently told me, it's like borrowing for free. That's how it feels to me, too: When my husband and I bought our first home in 1989, our interest rate was 11.75 percent.

At this point, it seems everyone wants the real estate market to get better:

• Realtors are selling a fraction of the homes they once were, taking a huge hit in income.

• Builders (at least, those that are still in business) are selling about one-eighth as many homes as they were selling in 2005.

• Appraisers continue to take some of the blame for the housing crisis, for over-appraising property in the boom years and under-appraising it now. Realtors say that more than 75 percent of the homes sales that fall apart do so because the appraisal comes in so far below the contract price that a deal can't be worked out.

• And homeowners are desperate for the housing market to rebound -- especially the more than 25 percent who are underwater with their homes -- so they can refinance or sell their homes and move on with their lives.

[Click here to check home equity rates in your area.]

There's no reason you shouldn't buy a home now and take advantage of super-low prices, historically low mortgage interest rates, and a significant supply of homes on the market. But to be successful in today's real estate market, you need to understand that the game has changed.

Here's my list of the biggest shifts:

1. R.I.P., Big Housing Price Jumps

If you want to buy a house, you have to have enough income to support the mortgage. Now, take it the next step: If everyone in a particular neighborhood earns around the same money, then all the houses in the neighborhood will be priced about the same and home values will only rise 3 percent per year.

That's about the typical raise most Americans used to get, but the decidedly old-fashioned expectation went out in the 2000s because banks told borrowers that exotic mortgages (like the infamous pay-option adjustable-rate mortgage, or ARM) would allow them to "leverage up" to a much more expensive house payment. It was a payment most clearly couldn't afford; the bulk of those loans started going delinquent within three months of closing. Now that every borrower has to have a job and some sort of down payment, and the only basic loan types available are 30-year and 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, you won't be able to leverage up with your mortgage, and housing prices will remain far more steady.

In short -- buy now, but don't expect a huge pop in home prices. It ain't going to happen.

2. Mortgage Lenders: Just Not That into You

Most home buyers don't have enough cash in their pocket to purchase a home without a mortgage. But, lenders are extremely risk-averse at the moment -- so they don't want to approve a mortgage application unless you have an extremely good FICO score (preferably 700 or higher, and at least 760 to get the best rates); you have plenty of cash in the bank (for your down payment, closing costs and a healthy cash reserve); you don't have anything weird or amiss in your financial data. And it helps if you have another loan application approved from a competing institution. Which is to say: They only want you if you don't really need them.

You'll also need to make sure the property appraises at or above the contracted price and the neighborhood is steady (without too many foreclosures).

3. The Best Deals Are in New Places

Sure, there are amazing short sales and foreclosures out there. To find them, you'll have to hire a great agent who really knows what he or she is doing, has connections with the foreclosure-sale (also known as real estate owned, or REO) departments of big lenders, and can help you navigate a tricky and frustrating negotiation cycle.

For example, if you want to buy a HUD home (an FHA foreclosure), you'll need a HUD-certified real estate agent who can help you make an offer at HUDHomeStore.com. But the agent may not tell you that short sales and foreclosures are often damaged properties that will require tens of thousands of dollars (or more) in deferred maintenance, rebuilding or renovating.

Instead, look for a property where the seller has plenty of equity and has to sell, but is confronted with a neighborhood full of foreclosures. The seller will have to price the home to compete with foreclosures, and you'll scoop up a property that is in much better shape and will, in all likelihood, require a lot less maintenance, renovation and upkeep.

4. Investing? Focus on Income

Somewhere along the way, ordinary civilians got the idea that there were massive profits to be made in real estate, if only they could flip the properties fast enough. The problem with that strategy became apparent when the real estate market crashed, and investors (who were leveraged to the hilt) couldn't get out of their properties in time. When you're paying thousands of dollars for a mortgage but don't have any income -- nor hopes of a sale -- it's a fast track to bankruptcy.

But now is an amazing time to buy investment property. Purchase a foreclosure or two (or up to 10, if you can find the financing), and focus on how much income you can get each month. If you buy a foreclosure in the Atlanta area for $75,000 and can get $800 to $1,000 per month in rent, that's a terrific return on investment.

5. Time to Think Medium Term ... at Minimum

I'm not sure where home buyers got the idea that they could buy and flip houses every 24 months and collect a king's ransom's worth of tax-free profits. But those days are over. Whether you're buying as an investor or plan to live in the property, you'll need a 7- to 10-year plan in order to make sure you won't lose money after factoring in the costs of sale.

Even those investors who are buying bottom-feeder foreclosures and fixing them up might not be able to resell them so quickly. And if they do, they might find that lenders won't finance their buyers. So come up with a long-term plan that will let you rake in money ... while the rest of the real estate market catches up.

The Bitcoin Triples Again

The online currency has minted off-line millionaires. But for how long?

The world's fastest-gaining currency has tripled in price again. Last week, SmartMoney reported that the Bitcoin had exploded from an exchange rate near zero to more than $10 in about a year, making it one of the top-returning assets of any kind. On Wednesday the currency topped $30.

More from SmartMoney.com: • Groupon and Pals: Worth More Than Google? • The Most Expensive Stock in America • The Invisible Stock Bubble

If returns like those seem otherworldly, perhaps its because Bitcoin is a world unto itself. To recap, it's is a purely online currency with no intrinsic value; its worth is based solely on the willingness of holders and merchants to accept it in trade. In that respect, it's not so different from fiat currencies like the dollar or Euro, but whereas governments back such money, Bitcoins lack central control.

In another way, the appeal of the Bitcoin echoes the appeal of gold. Instead of a central bank, a computer algorithm dictates their supply. Today there are six million Bitcoins, a number that will grow at a steadily slowing rate until it approaches 21 million, but no more. As with gold, some see such limited supply as built-in protection against inflation that could result from runaway government budget deficits. Gold, of course, has been a store of value for thousands of years and has at least some industrial use, whereas Bitcoins are brand new and exist only on the Internet.

For some early adopters, Bitcoins have turned from a hobby into a windfall. MtGox.com, the main exchange for users swapping Bitcoins for dollars and other currencies, charges buyers and sellers a fee of 0.65% for its brokerage service. (The name stands for Magic the Gathering Online Exchange, but the Bitcoin dabbler who bought the domain didn't bother to change it.) As recently as a few months ago, the site generated just pennies a day in income. By Wednesday it was making more than $40,000 a day.

Mt. Gox, needless to say, is not a regulated exchange, so its pricing and liquidity data aren't subject to any review or verification. Mt. Gox didn't respond to an email request for comment. The site offers no customer service phone number.

Click here for the Currency Center.

The largest Bitcoin account holder -- who is, of course, anonymous -- has 297,000 units of the start-up currency, according to Donald Norman, a spokesman for the The Bitcoin Consultancy, which offers advisory services for institutions interested in Bitcoin transactions. At $31 per Bitcoin, that's equivalent to $9.2 million.

Bitcoins are accepted by a limited number of merchants for services, such as website design, and some goods, such as music and clothes. The anonymous nature of the currency has also led to brazen use by drug dealers, including ones who hawk their merchandise on Silk Road, a website than can only be reached through a network that cloaks the identity of its owner. Lawmakers are not amused. "The only method of payment for these illegal purchases is an untraceable peer-to-peer currency known as Bitcoins," wrote Sens. Charles Schumer of New York and Joe Manchin of West Virginia this week in a letter to the U.S. Attorney General and the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Cash, Bitcoin advocates are quick to point out, is also an anonymous payment system used to buy drugs, and Norman says the focus on drugs is sensationalistic and misguided. "It would be sad if the growth of Bitcoin was stunted because of this criminal byproduct," he says. "Bitcoin is going to change the world in the same way the Internet did and make societies freer."

It's not clear that U.S. law enforcement agencies could regulate Bitcoins if they wanted to. The currency runs on software similar to the file-sharing software used to download music and movies, technology the entertainment industry has been trying unsuccessfully to quash for years. There's no headquarters, main server or central bank to visit, just a network of thousands of users. It's also not clear whether U.S. regulators would have jurisdiction over a global, virtual currency. Last week, a spokesman for the F.B.I. said he was unaware of Bitcoins and would check into the Bureau's position on them. Subsequent calls for comment have not been returned.

Readers tempted to bet on the Bitcoin should resist, not least because it's unclear whether it will have any enduring worth. Beyond what fans say are the currency's design advantages, its chief appeal at the moment is surely that it's soaring in value. As of now, today is the first day in more than a week that the currency didn't hit a new high. And when the gains stall, the fall that follows may be as breathtaking as the rise.