Verizon Offering $5 Shared 4G Plan for Samsung Galaxy Camera

Imagine the powerful Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone, except that it can't make phone calls and its backplate has been replaced by a digital camera -- handgrip, zoom lens, and all. That's basically the Samsung Galaxy Camera in a nutshell, and whether it's a small, awkwardly-shaped Android tablet or a digital camera that you can play Modern Combat 3 on depends on how you look at it.
When the Galaxy Camera launched last month, it was only available in white, and cost $499 on AT&T's network with a month-to-month data plan. But on Dec. 13, it launches on Verizon's network, in both white and black. The Verizon Galaxy Camera costs $50 more up front, but in return it has 4G LTE instead of HSPA+, and Verizon is offering a "promotional price" for the monthly charge: Only $5 to add it to a Share Everything plan, instead of the usual $10 tablet rate.
A 4G digital camera
While it's capable of functioning as an Android tablet (or game machine), the biggest reason for the Samsung Galaxy Camera's 4G wireless Internet is so it can automatically upload photos it takes. Apps such as Dropbox, Photobucket, and Ubuntu One offer a limited amount of online storage space for free, where the Galaxy Camera can save photos without anyone needing to tell it to. Those photos can then be accessed at home, or on a tablet or laptop.
Most smartphones are able to do this already, but few (with the possible exception of the Windows Phone powered Nokia Lumia 920) are able to take photos as high-quality as the Galaxy Camera's.
Not as good of a deal as it sounds
Dropbox is offering two years' worth of 50 GB of free online storage space for photos and videos, to anyone who buys a Samsung Galaxy Camera from AT&T or Verizon. (The regular free plan is only 2 GB.)
The problem is, you may need that much space. The photos taken by the Galaxy Camera's 16 megapixel sensor take up a lot more space, at maximum resolution, than ordinary smartphone snapshots do. Those camera uploads can eat through a shared data plan, and with Verizon charging a $15 per GB overage fee (plus the $50 extra up-front on top of what AT&T charges) it may make up for the cheaper monthly cost.
On top of that, the Galaxy Camera's photos are basically on par with a $199 digital camera's -- you pay a large premium to combine that kind of point-and-shoot with the hardware equivalent of a high-end smartphone.
It does run Android, though, right?
The Galaxy Camera uses Samsung's custom software for its camera app, and lacks a normal phone dialer app. Beyond that, though, it runs the same Android operating system found on smartphones, and can run all the same games and apps.
Some apps don't work the same on the Galaxy Camera as they do on a smartphone, however. Apps which only run in portrait mode, for instance, require you to hold the camera sideways to use them (especially unpleasant when they're camera apps). And while it can make voice and even video calls over Skype, it lacks a rear-facing camera or the kind of speaker you hold up close to your ear. So you may end up making speakerphone calls and filming the palm of your hand.
Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

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Selling flak jackets in the cyberwars

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - When the Israeli army and Hamas trade virtual blows in cyberspace, or when hacker groups like Anonymous rise from the digital ether, or when WikiLeaks dumps a trove of classified documents, some see a lawless Internet.
But Matthew Prince, chief executive at CloudFlare, a little-known Internet start-up that serves some of the Web's most controversial characters, sees a business opportunity.
Founded in 2010, CloudFlare markets itself as an Internet intermediary that shields websites from distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attacks, the crude but effective weapon that hackers use to bludgeon websites until they go dark. The 40-person company claims to route up to 5 percent of all Internet traffic through its global network.
Prince calls his company the "Switzerland" of cyberspace - assiduously neutral and open to all comers. But just as companies like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook have faced profound questions about the balance between free speech and openness on the Internet and national security and law enforcement concerns, CloudFlare's business has posed another thorny question: what kinds of services, if any, should an American company be allowed to offer designated terrorists and cyber criminals?
CloudFlare's unusual position at the heart of this debate came to the fore last month, when the Israel Defense Forces sought help from CloudFlare after its website was struck by attackers based in Gaza. The IDF was turning to the same company that provides those services to Hamas and the al-Quds Brigades, according to publicly searchable domain information. Both Hamas and al-Quds, the military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, are designated by the United States as terrorist groups.
Under the USA Patriot Act, U.S. firms are forbidden from providing "material support" to groups deemed foreign terrorist organizations. But what constitutes material support - like many other facets of the law itself - has been subject to intense debate.
CloudFlare's dealings have attracted heated criticism in the blogosphere from both Israelis and Palestinians, but Prince defended his company as a champion of free speech.
"Both sides have an absolute right to tell their story," said Prince, a 38-year old former lawyer. "We're not providing material support for anybody. We're not sending money, or helping people arm themselves."
Prince noted that his company only provides defensive capabilities that enable websites to stay online.
"We can't be sitting in a role where we decide what is good or what is bad based on our own personal biases," he said. "That's a huge slippery slope."
Many U.S. agencies are customers, but so is WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing organization. CloudFlare has consulted for many Wall Street institutions, yet also protects Anonymous, the "hacktivist" group associated with the Occupy movement.
Prince's stance could be tested at a time when some lawmakers in the United States and Europe, armed with evidence that militant groups rely on the Web for critical operations and recruitment purposes, have pressured Internet companies to censor content or cut off customers.
Last month, conservative political lobbies, as well as seven lawmakers led by Ted Poe, a Republican from Texas, urged the FBI to shut down the Hamas Twitter account. The account remains active; Twitter declined to comment.
MATERIAL SUPPORT
Although it has never prosecuted an Internet company under the Patriot Act, the government's use of the material support argument has steadily risen since 2006. Since September 11, 2001, more than 260 cases have been charged under the provision, according to Fordham Law School's Terrorism Trends database.
Catherine Lotrionte, the director of Georgetown University's Institute for Law, Science and Global Security and a former Central Intelligence Agency lawyer, argued that Internet companies should be more closely regulated.
"Material support includes web services," Lotrionte said. "Denying them services makes it more costly for the terrorists. You're cornering them."
But others have warned that an aggressive government approach would have a chilling effect on free speech.
"We're resurrecting the kind of broad-brush approaches we used in the McCarthy era," said David Cole, who represented the Humanitarian Law Project, a non-profit organization that was charged by the Justice Department for teaching law to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which is designated by the United States as a terrorist group. The group took its case to the Supreme Court but lost in 2010.
The material support law is vague and ill-crafted, to the point where basic telecom providers, for instance, could be found guilty by association if a terrorist logs onto the Web to plot an attack, Cole said.
In that case, he asked, "Do we really think that AT&T or Google should be held accountable?"
CloudFlare said it has not been contacted about its services by the U.S. government. Spokespeople for Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, told Reuters they contracted a cyber-security company in Gaza that out-sources work to foreign companies, but declined to comment further. The IDF confirmed it had hired CloudFlare, but declined to discuss "internal security" matters.
CloudFlare offers many of its services for free, but the company says websites seeking advanced protection and features can see their bill rise to more than $3,000 a month. Prince declined to discuss the business arrangements with specific customers.
While not yet profitable, CloudFlare has more than doubled its revenue in the past four months, according to Prince, and is picking up 3,000 new customers a day. The company has raked in more than $22 million from venture capital firms including New Enterprise Associates, Venrock and Pelion Venture Partners.
Prince, a Midwestern native with mussed brown hair who holds a law degree from the University of Chicago, said he has a track record of working on the right side of the law.
A decade ago, Prince provided free legal aid to Spamhaus, an international group that tracked email spammers and identity thieves. He went on to create Project Honey Pot, an open source spam-tracking endeavor that turned over findings to police.
Prince's latest company, CloudFlare, has been hailed by groups such as the Committee to Protect Journalists for protecting speech. Another client, the World Economic Forum, named CloudFlare among its 2012 "technology pioneers" for its work. But it also owes its profile to its most controversial customers.
CloudFlare has served 4Chan, the online messaging community that spawned Anonymous. LulzSec, the hacker group best known for targeting Sony Corp, is another customer. And since last May, the company has propped up WikiLeaks after a vigilante hacker group crashed the document repository.
Last year, members of the hacker collective UgNazi, whose exploits include pilfering user account information from eBay and crashing the CIA.gov website, broke into Prince's cell phone and email accounts.
"It was a personal affront," Prince said. "But we never kicked them off either."
Prince said CloudFlare would comply with a valid court order to remove a customer, but that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has never requested a takedown. The company has agreed to turn over information to authorities on "exceedingly rare" occasions, he acknowledged, declining to elaborate.
"Any company that doesn't do that won't be in business long," Prince said. But in an email, he added: "We have a deep and abiding respect for our users' privacy, disclose to our users whenever possible if we are ordered to turn over information and would fight an order that we believed was not proper."
Juliannne Sohn, an FBI spokeswoman, declined to comment.
Michael Sussmann, a former Justice Department lawyer who prosecuted computer crimes, said U.S. law enforcement agencies may in fact prefer that the Web's most wanted are parked behind CloudFlare rather than a foreign service over which they have no jurisdiction.
Federal investigators "want to gather information from as many sources as they can, and they're happy to get it," Sussmann said.
In an era of rampant cyber warfare, Prince acknowledged he is something of a war profiteer, but with a wrinkle.

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New exhibition explores our love and hate of money

 How does money make you feel? Fearful, stressed, happy?
U.S. financial guru Suze Orman has teamed with the producer of the popular Body Worlds exhibits for a new traveling show to look at how we relate to and understand money.
Orman, media star and author of best-selling books on personal finance, described the finance-themed exhibit as "an extension of my life's work as a financial educator, and an innovative way to teach people about money".
The interactive, multi-media exhibit, "Economia: Money Matters," will begin a five-year, nationwide tour in the fall of next year, starting in Chicago. The admission-charging show will move on to other venues that include science and natural history museums.
Gail Vida Hamburg, who designed and developed the exhibition, said she hit on the idea several years ago.
"I found a study about worry, stress and depression and their links to money or rather the lack of money ... I realized that I could synthesize all of this information into a designed exhibition with multimedia and interactives (displays)," said Hamburg, who designed the Body Worlds traveling exhibition of preserved human corpses that has toured Europe, North America and Asia.
The Money Matters exhibit spans 7,000 square feet with galleries on phases of life ranging from College Road to Third Phase, or retirement. It aims to meet national and state financial literacy goals for children and adults.
Hamburg, who founded museum exhibit firm Rainworks Omnimedia in 2010, believes the show's appeal is universal because money is something that everyone has a relationship with throughout life.
Orman has described the show as a walk through the life of money, and the effect it can have on you.
"It will be entertaining," she said in a statement, "and when you're having fun learning, the lessons stay with you."
Hamburg said she addressed finance's fear factor by engaging people with various exhibits and displays.
"How do you make it easy for visitors to understand the power of compounding?" she asked, adding that it has traditionally been taught with graphs or charts or calculators.
She decided to approach it differently using visitor prompts, and entry into a computer terminal and to show the results through the growth of actual physical objects.
"We should all be so smart with money and channel our inner Suze Orman. But we're not and we don't. Unless you're an MBA or an economist or a freak, you don't want to read about SEP-IRA or social security or student loan interest rates."
The goal of the exhibition "is to give visitors the tools and resources for financial self actualization," she added.

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Analysis: Mortgage demand too much for U.S. banks, who respond slowly

Big U.S. banks are hiring mortgage bankers to meet a surge in demand for home loans and refinancings, but they are still struggling to process applications, which could undermine the Federal Reserve's attempts to stimulate the economy.
Since the Fed announced its plan in September to buy up to $40 billion of mortgages a month, consumer mortgage rates have fallen more slowly and by less than they would have done in more normal times.
On average, 30-year home loan rates are down just 0.18 of a percentage point this week from September 13, when the Fed announced its latest stimulus program. Some analysts estimate that in more normal markets, rates would have fallen by roughly 0.31 of a percentage point or more. That could save a home buyer thousands of dollars over the lifetime of a mortgage.
The dysfunction in the mortgage market, which has yet to fully recover after its battering in the U.S. housing bust and subsequent financial crisis, means most benefits from the Fed's new stimulus plan may be accruing to banks instead of consumers.
Banks still committed to the home loan business are hiring to meet increased demand, but fewer banks are committed to the business after the 2007-2009 mortgage crisis pulverized some of the biggest lenders in the United States and wounded many others.
Capacity constraints work in the banks' favor. Profit margins for home lending are more than double their usual level, JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon told investors last Friday. The major U.S. banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co, Wells Fargo & Co and Citigroup Inc, all said mortgage operations boosted third-quarter profits.
Lenders making mortgages say they do not want to hire too many staffers only to lay them off when volume declines. The Mortgage Bankers Association estimates that banks will make $1.47 trillion of home loans this year for home purchases and refinancings, but then just $1.04 trillion in 2013, a decline of nearly a third.
"We are trying to ... not over hire," Andy Cecere, chief financial officer at U.S. Bancorp, said in an interview on Wednesday.
Top U.S. mortgage lender Wells Fargo added about 2,000 people in the third quarter as volume surged. Chief Financial Officer Tim Sloan said in an interview the bank is responding to the impact of the Fed's plan. Chase has increased its number of loan officers by 23 percent over the last year, and expects to keep hiring aggressively, said Kevin Watters, head of mortgage originations at JP Morgan Chase.
But mortgage applications are also jumping, rising nearly 17 percent in the week ended September 28. With demand that strong and no staffers to handle extra business, banks have little reason to cut rates much. In a speech on Monday, New York Federal Reserve President William Dudley acknowledged that difficulty, noting the Fed's efforts to stimulate the economy in recent years would have had a bigger economic impact if consumer mortgage rates were falling more.
Bank staffing issues are a headache for mortgage applicants already struggling with tough appraisals and wary lenders. Many borrowers tell Kafka-esque stories of bureaucracy, where what used to be a 30- to 60-day process has stretched to 90 days or more.
PROFIT BONANZA
The mortgage business has grown much more concentrated. The top two mortgage lenders made 14 percent of mortgage loans in 2000, 29 percent of mortgages in 2006, and 44 percent in the first half of 2012, according to Inside Mortgage Finance data.
Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase are the top two lenders now, and their predecessor companies were the top in 2000.
In 2006, Countrywide Financial Corp - now owned by Bank of America Corp - and Wells were the top. Bank of America last year stopped buying loans from other banks after suffering billions of dollars of losses from its exposure to home loans, which has cut its volume in half and limited smaller banks' capacity to lend.
Bankers are unsure how long the refinancing bonanza will last.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Dimon told investors the mortgage boom will continue "next quarter, maybe for a couple of quarters after that but it won't last for that much longer."
Citigroup Chief Financial Officer John Gerspach told investors on Monday that figuring out how long the refinancing boom will last is "one of the big questions facing a lot of institutions at this point in time."
Smaller banks are struggling with the same questions.
Matt Williams, president of Gothenburg State Bank in Gothenburg, Nebraska, and incoming chairman of the American Bankers Association, said his bank was not adding staff even though its 28 employees were "stressed to the max right now."
Williams said his bank, with $125 million in assets, expects rates eventually will go up, cutting demand for refinancing.
Mortgage demand was rising even before the Fed announced its latest plan to buy home loans, but that announcement immediately lowered bank funding costs. The effect on bank revenues will take longer to show up, because it takes months to process and close mortgage applications.
For consumers, capacity constraints among mortgage lenders mean rates are not falling as much as they theoretically could.
The average 30-year consumer mortgage rate was 3.37 percent, Freddie Mac said on Thursday - about 1.13 percentage points higher than rates investors in mortgage bonds would accept, as measured by the "secondary rate" for mortgages guaranteed by Fannie Mae.
In the second half of 2011, the gap between consumer mortgage rates and the secondary rate averaged closer to about 0.9 percentage point, suggesting lenders could cut rates another 0.23 point. However, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae boosted fees for guarantees by 0.1 of a percentage point in August, meaning the difference may be only about 0.13 of a percentage point.

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US rate on 30-year mortgage rises to 3.41 pct.

Average U.S. mortgage rates rose only slightly this week and continued to hover near record lows, a trend that has helped boost home sales and refinancing.
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage edged up to 3.41 percent, from 3.37 last week. Three weeks ago, the rate touched 3.36 percent. That's the lowest level on records dating to 1971.
The average rate on the 15-year fixed mortgage, often used for refinancing, rose to 2.72 percent. That's up from last week's record low of 2.66 percent.
The rate on the 30-year loan has remained below 4 percent all year, helping drive a modest housing recovery. And rates have fallen even further since the Federal Reserve started buying mortgage bonds in September to try to encourage more borrowing and spending.
Home sales have increased from last year, and prices are rising more consistently in most areas. Builders are more confident and starting more homes. Lower rates have also persuaded more people to refinance. That typically leads to lower monthly mortgage payments and more spending.
This week brought more positive news on the housing front. U.S. sales of new homes jumped last month to the highest level in more than two years, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. And slightly more Americans signed contracts last month to buy homes, the National Association of Realtors reported Thursday.
Still, the housing market has a long way to a full recovery. And many people are unable to take advantage of the low rates, either because they can't qualify for stricter lending rules or they lack the money to meet larger down payment requirements.
To calculate average mortgage rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country on Monday through Wednesday of each week.
The average doesn't include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.
The average fee for 30-year loans was 0.7 point, unchanged from last week. The fee for 15-year loans also held steady, at 0.6 point.
The average rate on a one-year adjustable-rate mortgage slipped to 2.59 percent from 2.60 percent. The fee for one-year adjustable rate loans remained at 0.4 point.
The average rate on a five-year adjustable-rate mortgage was unchanged at 2.75 percent. The fee also was unchanged, at 0.6 point.

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US home sales rise 2.1 percent in October

U.S. sales of previously occupied homes rose solidly in October, helped by improvement in the job market and record-low mortgage rates.
The increase along with a jump in homebuilder confidence this month suggests the housing market continues to recover.
The National Association of Realtors said Monday that sales rose 2.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.79 million. That's up from 4.69 million in September, which was revised lower.
The sales pace is roughly 11 percent higher than a year ago. But it remains below the more than 5.5 million that economists consider consistent with a healthy market.
As the economy slowly recovers, more people have started looking to buy homes or rent apartments. Prices are steadily climbing, while mortgage rates have been low all year. At the same time, rents are rising, making the purchase of a single-family home or condominium more attractive.
"Altogether, the report is encouraging," said Michael Gapen, an economist at Barclays Capital. "Our view is that housing is in a recovery phase," he added, though it will be restrained by limited credit and modest job gains.
A separate report Monday showed confidence among homebuilders rose this month to its highest level in six and a half years. The increase was driven by strong demand for newly built homes and growing optimism about conditions next year.
The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index increased to 46, up from 41 in October. Readings below 50 suggest negative sentiment about the housing market. The index last reached that level in April 2006. Still, the index has been trending higher since October 2011, when it stood at 17.
The Realtors' group said Superstorm Sandy delayed some sales of previously occupied homes in the Northeast. Sales fell 1.7 percent there, the only region to show a decline. Those sales will likely be completed in future months, the group said.
The median price for previously occupied homes increased 11.1 percent from a year ago to $178,600, the Realtors' said.
A decline in the number of homes available for sale is helping push prices higher. There were only 2.14 million homes available for sale at the end of the month, the lowest supply in 10 years. It would take only 5.4 months to exhaust that supply at the current sales pace. That's the lowest sales-to-inventory ratio since February 2006.
Prices are also benefiting from the mix of homes being sold. Sales of homes priced at $500,000 and above have jumped more than 40 percent in the past year. Sales of homes and condominiums that cost less than $100,000 fell 0.6 percent.
There have been other positive signals from the housing market. Applications for mortgage loans to buy homes jumped 11 percent in the week ended Nov. 9, compared with a week earlier, the Mortgage Bankers' Association said last week. Purchase applications are up 22 percent in the past year.
Foreclosures are slowing. The number of properties that began the foreclosure process in the first 10 months of the year fell 8 percent compared with the same period last year, RealtyTrac said last week.
And builders broke ground on new homes and apartments at the fastest pace in more than four years in September. The jump could help boost the economy and hiring.
Still, the market has a long way back to full health. Many potential home buyers cannot meet stricter lending standards or produce larger down payments required by banks.
That can be a particular problem for first-time homebuyers. They accounted for 31 percent of sales in October, down slightly from September and below the 40 percent that is common in a healthy market.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Thursday that banks' overly tight lending standards may be preventing sales and holding back the U.S. economy.

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News Summary: US home sales rise 2.1 pct. in Oct.

SALES RISE: U.S. sales of previously occupied homes rose moderately in October, helped by improvement in the job market and record-low mortgage rates. Sales rose 2.1 percent in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.79 million according to the National Association of Realtors.
INVENTORIES: A decline in housing inventory is helping push prices higher. There were only 2.14 million homes available for sale at the end of the month, the lowest in 10 years.
GAINS LIKELY TO CONTINUE: As the economy slowly recovers, more people have started looking to buy homes or rent apartments. Mortgage rates are at record lows and rents are rising. That makes buying a home more attractive.

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Syrian rebels make more gains in north

 Syrian rebels fully captured a northern town near the Turkish border on Tuesday after weeks of heavy fighting and attacked a regime air base in a neighboring province, activists said.
The air base is in Aleppo province, where opposition fighters have already captured three other large military bases in recent months. Rebels have also laid siege to the international airport in the city of Aleppo, Syria's commercial capital, and launched an offensive on the police academy near the city.
With steady rebel gains across the north, President Bashar Assad's regime is having increasing difficulty sending supplies by land to Aleppo province, especially after rebels cut a major thoroughfare from Damascus. It is just another sign that the opposition is consolidating its grip across large swathes of territory in northern Syria near the Turkish border.
In his traditional Christmas address, Pope Benedict XVI decried the slaughter of the "defenseless" in Syria, where anti-regime activists estimate more than 40,000 have died in fighting since the uprising against President Bashar Assad's rule began in March 2011.
In another blow to the regime, activists said that Mohammed Adnan Arabo, a member of Syria's parliament has left the country and joined the opposition. Ahmad Ramadan, an executive council member of the opposition Syrian National Council group, and other activists said Arabo arrived in Turkey on Tuesday.
He said the regime's hold on power is deteriorating and rebels are besieging military bases for weeks until they either take over or negotiate with local army commanders to surrender. He added that some regime forces are being diverted to the capital to fight there.
"The regime cannot protect its bases and also cannot send forces to support troops under siege," he said.
Over the weeks, rebels fighting to overthrow Assad have also been able to take the battles into the capital Damascus, Assad's seat of power, where the southern neighborhoods are witnessing almost daily clashes between troops and rebels.
The big successes began in mid-November, when rebels captured Aleppo's Regiment 46, a large military base, carting off tanks, armored vehicles and truck-loads of munitions. Three weeks later, they captured the Sheik Suleiman base near the provincial capital of Aleppo and days later they took an infantry base in the city.
Last week, they captured an army technical regiment near Damascus' international airport but were pushed back in a counter attack. The army command said in a statement that the regiment's commander was killed in the battle.
The rebels have also brought the battle to areas around Damascus international airport where some flights were cancelled earlier this month because of the intensity of the fighting.
One of the biggest blows came in Damascus on Dec. 12 when a suicide attacker blew his vehicle outside the Interior Ministry, killing five and wounding many, including Interior Minister Mohammed al-Shaar. The government denied at first that al-Shaar had been wounded until it got out when he was brought last week to a Beirut hospital for treatment.
It was the second injury the minister suffered after being wounded in a July 17, bomb inside a high-level crisis meeting in Damascus that killed four top regime officials, including Assad's brother-in-law and the defense minister.
The rebel takeover of Harem, a town of 20,000 in northern Idlib province, was the latest in a string of recent rebel successes.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the rebels captured Harem in the early hours of Tuesday. Mohammed Kanaan, an Idlib-based activist, said the last post to be taken was the historic citadel, which overlooked the town. The army had turned the citadel into a military post.
"Harem is fully liberated now," Kanaan said via Skype. He added that as the rebels pounded army posts and checkpoints in Harem, the troops withdrew to the citadel that later fell in the hands of rebels.
Rami-Abdul-Rahman, who heads to Observatory, said nearly 30 soldiers and pro-government gunmen surrendered late Monday. He added that rebels set free all gunmen at the age of 16 or less and referred others to local tribunals.
"Harem was very important because it is one of the towns that was loyal to the regime," Abdul-Rahman said by telephone about the town that is nearly a mile from the Turkish border.
In Aleppo province, which neighbors Idlib, local activist Mohammed Saeed said rebels attacked the air base in the town of Mannagh near the Turkish border. He said it is one of four air bases in the province, adding that rebels also attacked the police academy near the city of Aleppo.
Regime forces have been using helicopters to carry supplies to besieged areas and to attack rebel positions.
The regime has had increasing difficulty sending supplies by land to Aleppo province after rebels captured in October the strategic town Maaret al-Numan. The town is on the highway that links Damascus with Aleppo, Syria's largest city and a major battleground in the civil war since July.
"Airplanes and helicopters are the only way to send supplies since the Free Syrian Army controls the land," Saeed said. He added that rebels are also laying a siege to Aleppo's international airport known as Nairab and threatening to shoot down military or civilians planes using it.
In the Damascus suburb of Jaramana, opposition gunmen ambushed the head of military intelligence in the area and seriously wounded him. He later died of his wounds, the Observatory said.
Elsewhere in Syria, the Observatory reported violence in areas including the eastern province of Deir el-Zour, the southern area of Quneitra on the edge of the Israeli-occupied Golan Height and the southern region of Daraa.
In Israel, top officials said they cannot corroborate Syrian activists' claims that the regime has used chemical weapons against its citizens.
Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon told Army Radio that Israel has "no confirmation or proof" the regime has employed such weapons in the civil war. He says Israel is "monitoring the situation with concern."
Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad told Israel Radio that Syria was closely guarding its chemical weapons stockpiles.
On Monday, the Observatory quoted activists in the central city of Homs as saying that six rebels died in two neighborhoods the day before after inhaling white smoke that came out of shells fired by government troops in the area. Amateur videos released by activists showed men in hospital beds suffering breathing problems as doctors placed oxygen masks over their faces.

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Egypt's parliament convenes after charter passes

 Egypt's upper house of parliament has convened in its first session after the passing of the country's Islamist-backed constitution, the first action by a state institution in accordance with a document whose legitimacy is still contested by the opposition.
The Shura Council was swearing in 90 new members appointed by President Mohammed Morsi Wednesday. The charter, approved by 63.8 percent in a two-round referendum that ended Saturday, gives the traditionally toothless upper house full legislative powers until elections for a new lower house is called within two months.
The Islamist-dominated council is expected to draft a law regulating upcoming parliamentary elections. Other items on the agenda may include laws on protests and the media.
The opposition says the constitutional process was rushed and the referendum marked by widespread irregularities.

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Report: Iran ex-president's family sues hardliner

 An Iranian news agency says four children of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani are suing a radical lawmaker for describing the influential ex-president's family as a corrupt "octopus."
Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaei, who is a lawyer for Rafsanjani's family, was quoted by the semiofficial ISNA news agency Wednesday as saying that a complaint has been filed against Hamid Rasai.
Rafsanjani is considered a political centrist. Since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed reelection in 2009, in which Rafsanjani supported Ahmadinejad's reformist challenger, his family has come under pressure from hardliners.
In a speech broadcast on state radio last week, Rasai, who is one of Ahmadinejad's allies, called one of the ex-president's sons a "corrupt monster who has always enjoyed iron immunity.

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