Well, it's that time again -- famed chipmaker Intel has just reported its fiscal Q3 2013 earnings and they're just a bit better than expected. The company reported quarterly revenue of $13.5 billion (which is pretty much flat compared to its performance last year) and earnings of $0.58 per share (again, same as last year).Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/9jF5guVMzyk/
Druva has raised a $25 million Series C investment from Sequoia Capital, Nexus Venture Partners and Tenaya Capital for its backup and file sharing platform that safeguards a company's data across mobile devices and desktops. The company will use the funds to extend its new cloud services offering. To date, Druva has raised a total of $52 million.BAGHDAD (AP) — First came the fireball, then the screams of the victims. The suicide bombing just outside a Baghdad graveyard knocked Nasser Waleed Ali over and peppered his back with shrapnel.
Ali was one of the lucky ones. At least 51 died in the Oct. 5 attack, many of them Shiite pilgrims walking by on their way to a shrine. No one has claimed responsibility, but there is little doubt al-Qaida's local franchise is to blame. Suicide bombers and car bombs are its calling cards, Shiite civilians among its favorite targets.
Al-Qaida has come roaring back in Iraq since U.S. troops left in late 2011 and now looks stronger than it has in years. The terror group has shown it is capable of carrying out mass-casualty attacks several times a month, driving the death toll in Iraq to the highest level in half a decade. It sees each attack as a way to cultivate an atmosphere of chaos that weakens the Shiite-led government's authority.
Recent prison breaks have bolstered al-Qaida's ranks, while feelings of Sunni marginalization and the chaos caused by the civil war in neighboring Syria are fueling its comeback.
"Nobody is able to control this situation," said Ali, who watches over a Sunni graveyard that sprang up next to the hallowed Abu Hanifa mosque in 2006, when sectarian fighting threated to engulf Iraq in all-out civil war.
"We are not safe in the coffee shops or mosques, not even in soccer fields," he continued, rattling off some of the targets hit repeatedly in recent months.
The pace of the killing accelerated significantly following a deadly crackdown by security forces on a camp for Sunni protesters in the northern town of Hawija in April. United Nations figures show 712 people died violently in Iraq that month, at the time the most since 2008.
The monthly death toll hasn't been that low since. September saw 979 killed.
Al-Qaida does not have a monopoly on violence in Iraq, a country where most households have at least one assault rifle tucked away. Other Sunni militants, including the Army of the Men of the Naqshabandi Order, which has ties to members of Saddam Hussein's now-outlawed Baath party, also carry out attacks, as do Shiite militias that are remobilizing as the violence escalates.
But al-Qaida's indiscriminate waves of car bombs and suicide attacks, often in civilian areas, account for the bulk of the bloodshed.
At least 42 people were killed in new wave of bombings in mostly Shiite-majority cities on Sunday.
The group earlier this year renamed itself the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, highlighting its cross-border ambitions. It is playing a more active military role alongside other predominantly Sunni rebels in the fight to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad, and its members have carried out attacks against Syrians near the porous border inside Iraq.
The United States believes the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is now operating from Syria.
"Given the security vacuum, it makes sense for him to do that," said Paul Floyd, a military analyst at global intelligence company Stratfor who served several U.S. Army tours in Iraq. He said the unrest in Syria could be making it even easier for al-Qaida to get its hands on explosives for use in Iraq.
"We know Syrian military stocks have fallen into the hands of rebels. There's nothing to preclude some of that stuff flowing across the border," he said.
Iraqi officials acknowledge the group is growing stronger.
Al-Qaida has begun actively recruiting more young Iraqi men to take part in suicide missions after years of relying primarily on foreign volunteers, according to two intelligence officials. They said al-Baghdadi has issued orders calling for 50 attacks per week, which if achieved would mark a significant escalation.
One of the officials estimated that al-Qaida now has at least 3,000 trained fighters in Iraq alone, including some 100 volunteers awaiting orders to carry out suicide missions. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to disclose intelligence information.
A study released this month by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said al-Qaida in Iraq has emerged as "an extremely vigorous, resilient, and capable organization" that can operate as far south as Iraq's Persian Gulf port of Basra.
The group "has reconstituted as a professional military force capable of planning, training, resourcing and executing synchronized and complex attacks in Iraq," author Jessica Lewis added.
The study found that al-Qaida was able to carry out 24 separate attacks involving waves of six or more car bombs on a single day during a one-year period that coincided with the terror group's "Breaking the Walls" campaign, which ended in July.
It carried out eight separate prison attacks over the same period, ending with the complex, military-style assaults on two Baghdad-area prisons on July 21 that freed more than 500 inmates, many of them al-Qaida members.
"It's safe to assume a good percentage of them ... would flow back into the ranks," boosting the group's manpower, said Floyd, the military analyst.
American troops and Iraqi forces, including Sunni militiamen opposed to the group's extremist ideology, beat back al-Qaida after the U.S. launched its surge strategy in 2007. That policy shift deployed additional American troops to Iraq and shifted the focus of the war effort toward enhancing security for Iraqis and winning their trust.
By 2009, al-Qaida and other Sunni extremist groups were "reduced to a few small cells struggling to survive and unable to mount more than token attacks," Kenneth Pollack, a Clinton administration official who is now a Middle East analyst at the Brookings Institution, noted in a report earlier this year.
Now there are fears that all the hard work is coming undone.
Iraqis, both Sunni and Shiite, say they are losing faith in the government's ability to keep the country safe.
"Al-Qaida can blow up whatever number of car bombs they want whenever they choose," said Ali Nasser, a Shiite government employee from Baghdad. "It seems like al-Qaida is running the country, not the government in Baghdad."
Many Sunnis, meanwhile, are unwilling to trust a government they feel has sidelined and neglected their sect.
Iraqi officials say that lack of trust has hampered intelligence-gathering efforts, with fewer Sunnis willing to pass along tips about suspected terrorist activities in their midst.
"During the surge, we helped build up the immune system of Iraq to deter these attacks. Now that immune system has been taken away," said Emma Sky, a key civilian policy adviser for U.S. Army Gen. Ray Odierno when he was the top American military commander in Iraq.
"Before you had the U.S. there to protect the political space and help move the country forward," she added. "How much longer can this go on before something breaks?"
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Associated Press writers Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.
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Follow Adam Schreck on Twitter at www.twitter.com/adamschreck.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- A nonprofit aiming to help Gov. Rick Perry gear up for another possible presidential run announced Monday he is appearing in a national advertising campaign blasting Washington while promoting GOP leadership in states around the country.
Amid the federal government shutdown and a looming debt-ceiling crisis in Congress, Americans for Economic Freedom on Tuesday will begin airing 10 days of 30-second spots on CNBC, Fox News and MSNBC. It also will have ads on the nationally syndicated radio shows of Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin.
Americans for Economic Freedom spokeswoman Sara Marie Kinney would not say exactly how much the campaign would cost, only that it involved a "high six-figure media buy."
The ads suggest that while the gridlock in Washington is hurting the economy, conservative governors are balancing budgets, creating jobs and cutting taxes. The television versions show President Barack Obama addressing Congress while Perry says in a voice-over: "Washington needs to change. But the president keeps playing politics."
A beaming Perry then appears flanked by the Texas Capitol and continues: "When I look around this country, there's another story. Conservative governors are reforming taxes and regulations, helping small businesses grow. Cutting and balancing budgets."
As images cut to people at work Perry says: "We need more of that, and less of Washington."
"This is Rick Perry trying to play politics," Texas Democratic Party Gilberto Hinojosa said Monday. "They created the mess and now they're trying to blame Barack Obama for what their own people in Congress did."
Americans for Economic Freedom is using $200,000-plus left over from a political action committee that raised millions during Perry's failed 2012 presidential bid. Perry announced the creation of the group meant to raise his national profile last month, during a trip to Missouri to lure job-creating firms from that state to Texas.
The group's CEO is Jeff Miller, a former chief financial officer for the California Republican Party, and includes board member Marc Rodriguez, chairman of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and a fellow Texan. Also on the board are St. Louis beer baron August Busch III, economist Art Laffer and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose endorsed Perry in 2012 after dropping out of the White House race himself.
Appearing on conservative radio host Mike Gallagher's radio show Monday, Perry said of Americans for Economic Freedom: "These are some folks that wanted to highlight the differences in policies between the states, and identify what works to create jobs, freedom and opportunity."
He talked about how mobile the American population now is, adding that over the past decade, New York and California have led the nation in lost personal wealth per-capita, while traditionally more conservative states like Florida, Arizona and Texas have seen personal wealth per capita spike.
Perry said the U.S. should let "the states be where the real competition is. Not Washington being the be-all, end-all nanny state that they are today."
Hinojosa countered that Texans and voters across America "are tired of these games."
"I doubt very seriously that anyone will take him seriously on a national campaign in the event he decides to run for president," Hinojosa said.
The governor isn't seeking a fourth full term in office next year but hasn't ruled out a second run for president in 2016.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Security Agency has been sifting through millions of contact lists from personal email and instant messaging accounts around the world — including those of Americans — in its effort to find possible links to terrorism or other criminal activity, according to a published report.
The Washington Post reported late Monday that the spy agency intercepts hundreds of thousands of email address books every day from private accounts on Yahoo, Gmail, Facebook and Hotmail that move though global data links. The NSA also collects about a half million buddy lists from live chat services and email accounts.
The Post said it learned about the collection tactics from secret documents provided by NSA leaker Edward Snowden and confirmed by senior intelligence officials. It was the latest revelation of the spy agency's practices to be disclosed by Snowden, the former NSA systems analyst who fled the U.S. and now resides in Russia.
The newspaper said the NSA analyzes the contacts to map relationships and connections among various foreign intelligence targets. During a typical day last year, the NSA's Special Source Operations branch collected more than 440,000 email address books, the Post said. That would correspond to a rate of more than 250 million a year.
A spokesman for the national intelligence director's office, which oversees the NSA, told the Post that the agency was seeking intelligence on valid targets and was not interested in personal information from ordinary Americans.
Spokesman Shawn Turner said the NSA was guided by rules that require the agency to "minimize the acquisition, use and dissemination" of information that identifies U.S. citizens or permanent residents.
While the collection was taking place overseas, the Post said it encompassed the contact lists of many American users. The spy agency obtains the contact lists through secret arrangements with foreign telecommunications companies or other services that control Internet traffic, the Post reported.
Earlier this year, Snowden gave documents to the Post and Britain's Guardian newspaper disclosing U.S. surveillance programs that collect vast amounts of phone records and online data in the name of foreign intelligence, often sweeping up information on American citizens.
The collection of contact lists in bulk would be illegal if done in the United States, but the Post said the agency can get around that restriction by intercepting lists from access points around the world.
The newspaper quoted a senior intelligence official as saying NSA analysts may not search or distribute information from the contacts database unless they can "make the case that something in there is a valid foreign intelligence target in and of itself."
Commenting on the Post story, Alex Abdo, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said in an emailed statement: "This revelation further confirms that the NSA has relied on the pretense of 'foreign intelligence gathering' to sweep up an extraordinary amount of information about everyday Americans. The NSA's indiscriminate collection of information about innocent people can't be justified on security grounds, and it presents a serious threat to civil liberties."
1 hour ago
Spencer Platt / Getty Images
Stocks moved up to end the week as investors took an optimistic view of the ongoing talks in Washington.
Stocks closed near session highs Friday, hoisting the Dow and S&P 500 to finish in the black for the week, as investors grew more optimistic over the progress in Washington.
"We're solidly in the buy-the-dip camp in terms of the shutdown — we view the shutdown as a non-event [for the market]," said Erik Ristuben, chief investment strategist at Russell Investments. "The big risk was the debt ceiling and a potential credit default. And it seems that Washington is dedicated to taking default off the table and that's what the market's reacting to."
(Read more: Debt ceiling fight is déjà vu all over again)
The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 111.04 points, to close at 15,237.11, boosted by Visa and Johnson & Johnson. On Thursday, the Dow skyrocketed more than 300 points, posting its second-best day this year.
The S&P 500 rallied 10.64 points, to finish at 1,703.20. And the Nasdaq jumped 31.13 points, to end at 3,791.87.
The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), widely considered the best gauge of fear in the market, closed below 16.
For the week, the Dow advanced 1.09 percent, the S&P 500 climbed 0.75 percent. But the Nasdaq shed 0.42 percent, snapping a five-week win streak. P&G led the weekly Dow gainers, while Merck lagged.
Most key S&P sectors closed higher for the week, led by utilities, while consumer discretionary slipped.
"I don't expect a full deal by the weekend but I do expect [them] to continue to talk," said Ristuben. "In general, we think equity earnings are going to be good — in the 4 to 5 percent range — we're actually quite conservative. But we think that's enough to take equities forward because cash and bonds don't look like they're going to offer very good returns over the next year."
With a partial government shutdown in its 11th day, House Republicans were prepared to offer a new deal featuring both an increase in the debt limit and an end to the government shutdown in return for spending cuts, according a report from The Associated Press.
The AP also reported that Senate Republicans have started work on a bipartisan solution to the debt ceiling and government shutdown crises after a meeting with President Obama.
(Read more: Fire 'em! Majority want to toss entire Congress: Poll)
Among earnings, JPMorgan topped Wall Street expectations. But overall, the bank posted a quarterly loss due to legal expenses, but it expects those costs to eventually abate and normalize. Shares were higher for most of the session, but closed nearly flat.
And Wells Fargo posted quarterly earnings that hit a record as loans and deposits surged during the period.
(Read more: Bove: Don't worry about this bank)
On the economic front, consumer sentiment fell in October to its weakest level in nine months as the government shutdown affected Americans' outlook on the economy. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan's preliminary reading on the overall index on consumer sentiment fell to 75.2 in October, down from 77.5 in September. Economists surveyed by Reuters expected a reading of 76.0.
—By CNBC's JeeYeon Park (Follow JeeYeon on Twitter: @JeeYeonParkCNBC)
© 2013 CNBC LLC. All Rights Reserved
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