Gates pushes Iraq's leaders on reconciliation

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates met Iraqi leaders on Saturday to tell them Washington was disappointed with their efforts to reconcile warring factions.
Gates, who flew into Baghdad Friday night, was briefed by U.S. commanders on a U.S. troop build-up intended to buy time for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government to reach a political accommodation with Sunni Arabs.
There were few details of Gates' meeting with Maliki and other Iraqi leaders but Gates told reporters travelling with him he would deliver a simple message "that our troops are buying them time to pursue reconciliation, that frankly we are disappointed with the progress so far."
General David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said troops had launched offensives against Sunni Islamist al Qaeda hideouts around Baghdad in the past 24 hours to hunt car-bombers.
"For the first time we are really going to a couple of the key areas in the belts from which al Qaeda has sallied forth with car bombs, additional fighters and so forth," he said.
The U.S. military has completed its troop build-up in Iraq to 160,000 soldiers. Nearly 28,000 additional troops have been sent to Iraq, mainly to Baghdad for a major crackdown on sectarian violence.
"We are ahead in some areas and behind in others," Petraeus said of the four-month-old crackdown. He has previously said the success of the operation could not be judged until all the reinforcements were fully operational.
Gates' visit and criticism were signs Washington is growing increasingly frustrated with what U.S. officials regards as foot-dragging on laws on distributing oil revenues, control of regional oil fields and holding provincial elections.
Newsweek quoted Maliki as saying in an interview on Friday that his government rejected pressure and considered timetables harmful."The word 'pressure' and timetables, they do not help and they are not a good principle for political relations," Maliki said in the interview posted on the Newsweek Web site.
Iraq's main political blocs have so far shown a reluctance to compromise on any of the key issues blocking reconciliation. Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs are also locked in a cycle of violence that many fear is pushing the country toward all-out civil war.
The second bombing of the revered Shi'ite al-Askari mosque in Samarra this week has alarmed U.S. officials, who fear it could derail reconciliation efforts and trigger a repeat of the wave of violence that was unleashed by the first attack in February 2006, killing tens of thousands.
A four-day curfew in Baghdad has largely kept a lid on retaliatory attacks in the capital, although a number of Sunni mosques have been torched or blown up elsewhere. In the latest attack, a Sunni mosque in the southern Shi'ite city of Basra was leveled in an explosion Saturday, police said.
Maliki said Iraqi security forces were in control of the country's streets after the "painful" Samarra bombing.
The government had signed an agreement with UNESCO to rebuild the famed mosque, he added.
On his last visit in April, Gates explicitly tied political progress to the U.S. troop build-up. Petraeus and U.S. envoy Ryan Crocker are due to report in September on the success of the new strategy and make recommendations on how to proceed.
The U.S. military said troops found the identity cards of two U.S. soldiers missing for nearly a month during a raid on an al Qaeda safe house north of Baghdad.
The cards were shown in an al Qaeda Web video posted on June 4 in which the group said it had killed the two soldiers. The U.S. military said no one was found in the house.
The cards belonged to Specialist Alex Jimenez and Private Byron Fouty. Jimenez and Fouty were abducted along with a third soldier, whose body has since been found, after an attack on their patrol in Yusufiya south of Baghdad on May 12.

World of e-sports braces for sea change

His fingers flying under the glare of bright stadium lights, the young man in a silver-and-white space suit makes hundreds of female fans swoon with his every move ,Video-gamer Lee Yun-yeol, 22, is playing "StarCraft," earning big money as he attracts tens of thousands of rabid followers in South Korea, where millions also tune in to cable channels devoted to live tournaments, and top players have achieved sports star status.
But this world of "e-sports" and virtual heroes may soon undergo some profound changes, triggered by the very game that has built its success in the last decade.
Blizzard Entertainment, a unit of French media and telecoms group Vivendi, last month announced a much-awaited sequel to its real-time strategy game "StarCraft." While ordinary gamers greeted the news with excitement, professional players and industry officials expressed concerns.
"StarCraft II" keeps the original storyline about wars among three distinct species, set in a gritty sci-fi universe. But the sequel offers new eye-dazzling, three-dimensional graphics as well as changes in the gameplay strategies.
Pro gamers who have built up their state-of-art skills over the years may find their edge dissipated with the new version. Game channels and professional teams also face a tough choice over when they should migrate to the sequel, and abandon the successful, still-dominant original.
"There's high expectation for 'StarCraft II,'" said Je Hun-ho, director at Korea e-Sports Association. "However, whether it can succeed as an e-sport is yet to be seen. Users will make that call."
Lee, one of the first generation of professional players who earns upwards of $200,000 a year in prizes and endorsements, is more optimistic.
"It will be so much fun," said Lee, who has been playing the original "StarCraft" in pro leagues for more than seven years. "It might be hard to get used to the new game at first, but it will certainly be a refreshing change for me."Blizzard is keeping mum on the official launch of "StarCraft II," which went into development in 2003. But the company insists that the game will provide a deeper, more complex and challenging playing experience.
"It's impossible to master," Blizzard's president and co-founder, Mike Morhaime, said in a recent interview in Seoul.
In professional video gaming, South Korea is well ahead of other countries in the areas of commercial profit and gaming skills. Early broadband penetration and the success of gaming TV channels played a crucial role, along with the popularity of "StarCraft."
The "StarCraft" series has sold more than 9.5 million copies worldwide since its debut in 1998 and has led the development of e-sports.
Although the nearly decade-old game's graphics are showing their age, its complex strategy, time pressures and relatively short match times have made it the No. 1 choice in televised leagues.
In South Korea gamers focus on speedy play. A match is often completed in half an hour, so spectators don't get bored. "StarCraft" is also favored by broadcasters because viewers can easily follow overall game progress.
Lured by marketing potential, top companies such as Samsung Electronics and SK Telecom sponsor gaming leagues and teams. Even the South Korean Air Force this year formed a team, led by one of their top players.
But the world of professional video games is a constantly changing landscape. The original "StarCraft's" fortune has been waning in recent years, particularly in the United States and Europe, with the rising popularity of shooting games such as "Counter-Strike."
Even in South Korea, racing game "Kart Rider," sports game "Free Style" and shooting titles such as "Special Force" and "Sudden Attack" are gaining popularity as e-sports.Game developers are cooperating with booming Internet TV services to promote new titles in competitions, as Web TVs are keen to enter the profitable game broadcasting -- dominated by established cable channels like OnGameNet and MBC Game.
"'StarCraft II' will be a leader in growing e-sports," said Kim Sung-ho, producer at game channel MBC Game. "But there are many other games that can succeed as spectator e-sports and we will see the game world continue to diversify."

Blackstone says tax changes could hurt value

NEW YORK Blackstone Group LP which is preparing to go public later this month, said on Friday that proposed U.S. Senate legislation on the taxation of private equity firms could materially reduce earnings and lower the partnership's value.The big private equity firm expressed its concern a day after the leaders of the Senate Finance Committee proposed a bill to tax private equity firms that go public like corporations, potentially more than doubling their effective tax rate to 35 percent from 15 percent.Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat and committee chair, and Iowa's Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican, said buyout firms and hedge funds circumvent the intent behind U.S. tax law by going public as partnerships, given that much of their business comes from financial services and capital markets.New York-based Blackstone said the proposed law would apply to it beginning with the 2013 tax year, according to an amended prospectus for its roughly $4 billion initial public offering filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission,If this or any similar legislation or regulation were to be enacted and to apply to us, we would incur a material increase in our tax liability and (it) could well result in a reduction in the value of our common units," Blackstone said.It wasn't immediately clear how likely the proposed Senate bill or something like it might become law. The bill won praise Thursday from Rep. Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat who chairs the powerful House Ways and Means Committee.Blackstone is expected to conduct the year's largest U.S. initial public offering during the week of June 25. It has said it plans to offer 133.3 million units at $29 to $31 each, raising a potential $3.87 billion to $4.13 billion.The Baucus/Grassley bill's five-year grace period before taxes rise would also apply to Fortress Investment Group LLC which conducted its IPO in February, but other private equity firms seeking to go public would see taxes rise immediately.Fortress shares fell $1.69, or 6.7 percent, to $23.42 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.