Egypt appoints 10 new ministers, including finance chief, ahead of fresh talks with IMF

CAIRO - Egypt swore in 10 new ministers on Sunday in a Cabinet shake-up aimed at improving the government's handling of the country's ailing economy ahead of talks this week with the International Monetary Fund over a badly needed $4.8 billion loan.
The reshuffle, which President Mohammed Morsi had promised in response to public anger over Egypt's economic malaise, affected two key ministries, the interior and finance. It also solidified Islamist control of the government, putting three portfolios in the hands of members of the president's Muslim Brotherhood.
The dire state of Egypt's economy was punctuated Sunday by new central bank figures that put December's foreign currency reserves at $15.01 billion, down $26 million from a month earlier. The reserves have dropped by more than half since the uprising that ousted longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak in February 2011.
The central bank said last month that current reserve levels represent a "critical minimum."
Morsi met with the new ministers after their swearing-in ceremony at the presidential palace in Cairo where they discussed ways to revive tourism and attract foreign investors, a presidential official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.
Prime Minister Hesham Kandil, meanwhile, said he stressed in his first meeting with the new ministers the need for immediate action to stabilize the economy.
At the heart of those efforts lies the $4.8 billion loan that Egypt has requested from the IMF. Cairo says the funds are needed to bolster confidence in the country's economy and attract foreign investors.
Egypt asked the IMF for a delay in the talks on the loan after a wave of political turmoil erupted in December over a contentious new constitution. Mass protests and street violence tied to the constitution dealt yet another blow to major foreign currency earners, including tourism and foreign investment.
The unrest also sparked a rush on U.S. dollars by worried residents and led to a drop in the Egyptian pound, which shed nearly four per cent of its value against the dollar over the past two weeks.
The opposition, a coalition of liberal, secular-leaning, and leftist groups, was not offered any seats in the new Cabinet and has said that any government shake-up that doesn't replace Kandil falls short of what is needed.
The two most important changes affect the finance and interior ministries.
El-Morsi Hegazy, a professor of public finance at Alexandria University, takes over the Finance Ministry, replacing Mumtaz el-Said, who was appointed by the country's transitional military rulers and widely viewed as being at odds with the Brotherhood.
Mohammed Ibrahim, meanwhile, will lead the Interior Ministry, which is responsible for the police force. He previously was in charge of prisons and prior to that was director of security in the province of Assiut, which has a large Coptic Christian population and has also been home to a number of Islamic militant groups.
Ibrahim said his priorities will be to fight a rising wave of crime and restore stability to Egypt.
"We will strike with an iron fist against anyone that threatens the security of the nation and Egyptians," Ibrahim told the state news agency, pledging to clamp down on cross-border weapons smuggling. Egypt has been flush with weapons smuggled from Libya and Sudan.
Three of the new ministers are from the Brotherhood, according to the spokesman for the group's Freedom and Justice Party, Ahmed Subaie. They take over the ministries of transportation, local development and supply and interior trade, giving the Brotherhood a total of eight Cabinet posts.
Also included in the reshuffle were the ministries of civil aviation, environment, electricity, communication and parliamentary affairs.
Karim Ennarah, a researcher on police and security reforms at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said the previous interior minister, Ahmed Gamal Eddin, was likely replaced because Brotherhood leaders were upset with the police's handling of attacks against the group's offices and supporters during clashes with the opposition last month over the constitution.
"It seems like it is a clash of egos. It's obviously not a reform of any kind," Ennarah said.
With the new Cabinet set, Kandil told reporters he will meet with IMF officials Monday "to reassure them about Egypt's situation and economic recovery in the coming period."
An IMF statement said the purpose of the visit is "to discuss with the authorities the most recent economic developments, their policy plans for addressing Egypt's economic and financial challenges, and possible IMF support for Egypt in facing these challenges."
Egyptian officials have said that the country's budget deficit is likely to reach 200 billion Egyptian pounds ($31.5 billion) by mid-2013.
The implementation of austerity measures, many of which are believed to be linked to conditions attached to the IMF loan, was also delayed last month due to the political situation.
Kandil's government is expected to announce tax hikes and cuts in subsidies soon. Talk of restructuring the current system is sensitive in a nation where nearly half of its 85 million people live just at or below the poverty line of $2 per person a day.

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Fighting Irish vs Crimson Tide: 2 storied programs try to live up to hype in BCS title game

MIAMI - Sometimes, the buildup to a game can overwhelm what actually happens on the field.
Certainly, No. 1 Notre Dame and No. 2 Alabama would have to play nothing less than a classic to live up to all the hype for Monday night's BCS championship.
Before either team stepped on the field in balmy South Florida, this was shaping up as one of the most anticipated games in years, a throwback to the era when Keith Jackson & Co. called one game a week, when it was a big deal for teams from different parts of the country to meet in a bowl game, when everyone took sides based on where they happened to live.
North vs. South. Rockne vs. Bear. Rudy vs. Forrest Gump.
The Fighting Irish vs. the Crimson Tide.
College football's two most storied programs, glorified in movie and song, facing off for the biggest prize.
"It's definitely not any other game," said Alabama linebacker C.J. Mosley.
For the Crimson Tide (12-1), this is a chance to be remembered as a full-fledged dynasty. Alabama will be trying to claim its third national championship in four years and become the first school to win back-to-back BCS titles, a remarkable achievement given the ever-increasing parity of the college game and having to replace five players from last year's title team who were picked in the first two rounds of the NFL draft.
"To be honest, I think this team has kind of exceeded expectations," coach Nick Saban said Sunday. "If you look at all the players we lost last year, the leadership that we lost ... I'm really proud of what this team was able to accomplish."
That said, it's not a huge surprise to find Alabama playing for another title. That's not the case when it comes to Notre Dame.
Despite their impressive legacy, the Fighting Irish (12-0) weren't even ranked at the start of the season. But overtime wins against Stanford and Pittsburgh, combined with three other victories by a touchdown or less, gave Notre Dame a shot at its first national title since 1988.
After so many lost years, the golden dome has reclaimed its lustre in coach Brian Kelly's third season.
"It starts with setting a clear goal for the program," Kelly said. "Really, what is it? Are we here to get to a bowl game, or are we here to win national championships? So the charge immediately was to play for championships and win a national championship."
Both Notre Dame and Alabama have won eight Associated Press national titles, more than any other school. They are the bluest of the blue bloods, the programs that have long set the bar for everyone else even while enduring some droughts along the way.
ESPN executives were hopeful of getting the highest ratings of the BCS era. Tickets were certainly at a premium, with a seat in one of the executive suites going for a staggering $60,000 on StubHub the day before the game, and even a less-than-prime spot in the corner of the upper deck requiring a payout of more than $900.
"This is, to me, the ultimate match-up in college football," said Brent Musberger, the lead announcer for ESPN.
Kelly moulded Notre Dame using largely the same formula that has worked so well for Saban in Tuscaloosa: a bruising running game and a stout defence, led by Heisman Trophy finalist Manti Te'o.
"It's a little bit old fashioned in the sense that this is about the big fellows up front," Kelly said. "It's not about the crazy receiving numbers or passing yards or rushing yards. This is about the big fellas, and this game will unquestionably be decided up front."
While points figure to be at a premium given the quality of both defences, Alabama appears to have a clear edge on offence. The Tide has the nation's highest-rated passer (AJ McCarron), two 1,000-yard rushers (Eddie Lacy and T.J. Yeldon), a dynamic freshman receiver (Amari Cooper), and three linemen who made the AP All-America team (first-teamers Barrett Jones and Chance Warmack, plus second-teamer D.J. Fluker).
"That's football at its finest," said Te'o, who heads a defence that has given up just two rushing touchdowns. "It's going to be a great challenge, and a challenge that we look forward to."
The Crimson Tide had gone 15 years without a national title when Saban arrived in 2007, the school's fifth coach in less than a decade (including one, Mike Price, who didn't even made it to his first game in Tuscaloosa). Finally, Alabama got it right.
In 2008, Saban landed one of the greatest recruiting classes in school history, a group that has already produced eight NFL draft picks and likely will send at least three more players to the pros (including Jones). The following year, the coach guided Alabama to a perfect season, beating Texas in the title game at Pasadena.
Last season, the Tide fortuitously got a shot at another BCS crown despite losing to LSU during the regular season and failing to even win its division in the Southeastern Conference. In a rematch against the Tigers, Alabama romped to a 21-0 victory at the Superdome.
The all-SEC matchup gave the league an unprecedented six straight national champions, hastening the end of the BCS. It will last one more season before giving way to a four-team playoff in 2014, an arrangement that was undoubtedly pushed along by one conference hoarding all the titles under the current system.
"Let's be honest, people are probably getting tired of us," Jones said. "We don't really mind. We enjoy being the top dog and enjoy kind of having that target on our back, and we love our conference. Obviously, we'd rather not be a part of any other conference."
This title game certainly has a different feel than last year's.
"That was really kind of a weird national championship because it was a team we already played," Jones remembered. "It was kind of another SEC game. It was in the South, and it just had a very SEC feel to it obviously. This year is much more like the 2009 game (against Texas) for me. We're playing an opponent that not only we have not played them, but no one we have played has played them. So you don't really have an exact measuring stick."
In fact, these schools have played only six times, and not since 1987, but the first of their meetings is still remembered as one of the landmark games in college football history. Bear Bryant had one of his best teams at the 1973 Sugar Bowl, but Ara Parseghian and the Fighting Irish claimed the national title by knocking off top-ranked Alabama 24-23.
If you're a long-time Notre Dame fan, you still remember Parseghian's gutty call to throw the ball out of the end zone for a game-clinching first down. If you were rooting for the Tide, you haven't forgotten a missed extra point that turned out to be the losing margin.
Of course, these Alabama players aren't concerned about what happened nearly four decades ago.
For the most part, all they know is winning.
"There's a lot of tradition that goes into Alabama football," Mosley said, "and our plan is to keep that tradition alive.

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Fowler flies blind on yardage at windy Kapalua

Yardage numbers were often meaningless for Rickie Fowler on a brutal Friday at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions in Hawaii where the first round was eventually abandoned because of severe gusting winds.
With golf umbrellas bending sharply in intermittent driving rain and balls being blown off line on the more exposed greens, Fowler realized he simply had to choose his shot and then try to pull it off.
"For the most part, I told my caddie I almost didn't even need any (yardage) numbers today," American Fowler told reporters after the opening round was scrapped because of winds gusting up to 45 mph.
"It's more looking at the shot and seeing what the weather is, just grab a club and pick the flight and hit it. Numbers were kind of irrelevant at times.
"I had a ball that rolled up the hill on (hole) six with a gust; and that was a few holes back from when we finished. We didn't say anything. We were just kind of toughing it out ... guinea pigs up front."
Fowler and fellow American Jason Dufner had teed off as the first pairing of the day in the PGA Tour's season-opening event at the Kapalua Resort.
They had completed only eight holes, with Fowler slipping to three over par and Dufner sitting at one over, when play was suspended.
Organizers later decided to wipe out the first round and send the players out on Saturday in a bid to complete 36 holes.
"After the strong winds that came through and the weather, I felt like it was a smart decision," said Fowler, who booked his place in the elite, winners-only field of 30 with his maiden PGA Tour victory at last year's Wells Fargo Championship.
"Obviously Webb (Simpson) is probably the only one that may be a little bummed," he added, referring to U.S. Open champion who was three under for the round after seven holes. "He was out there playing well and had control of his golf ball."
The killer blow for Fowler came when he double-bogeyed the eighth after dumping his tee shot into a hazard, and he was delighted when play was abandoned soon after.
"I'm really glad that didn't count because after hitting that and hearing the horn blow a minute later as I'm walking off the tee made me a little upset," he said.
"I felt like I was playing pretty well up until we had to hit in some crazy weather on eight and I ended up making double. Other than that, one over par, I felt like it was pretty good over seven holes.
"It was brutal out there. You definitely had to be hitting solid golf shots and picking the right times to hit."
Friday's decision by organizers to wipe out a round due to poor weather was the first on the PGA Tour since the second round of the 2005 Players Championship was declared "null and void".

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PGA Tour's season opener at Kapalua gets mulligan

KAPALUA, Hawaii (AP) — A bum deal for Webb Simpson. A big break for Scott Stallings.
And a mulligan for the PGA Tour.
The new golf season was not even two hours old when the wind squalls roaring down the mountains above Maui made conditions too severe to continue Friday in the Tournament of Champions. Because the first group off had only completed eight holes — six players had not even started — and the forecast offered no relief from the wind, the first round was wiped out.
Season opener, take two.
Rickie Fowler will return to the first tee Saturday morning, and for the second straight day, officially launch the PGA Tour season. But even that's in doubt. The plan was to play 36 holes, though the forecast was for wind just as strong.
"I can honestly say the forecast isn't real good, but maybe we'll get lucky," said Slugger White, the tour's vice president of rules and competition. "That's the hope."
Fowler already was 3 over for the day after a 40-mph gust knocked his ball out of the sky on the par-3 eighth and sent it into a gorge, leading to double bogey. Conditions were so tough that only two of the 20 players who had a score on their cards were under par.
One of them was Simpson, who turned in a remarkable performance by keeping it simple and making a few putts. He was 3 under through seven holes, and now starts from scratch when he comes back to the Plantation Course at Kapalua.
"It stinks for me," Simpson said.
Stallings already was 7 over through four holes. That no longer counts, either.
"Obviously, I was thrilled," Stallings said. "It was just really bad. I hit bad shots and got bad breaks. I'd like to know how Webb Simpson was 3 under."
The wind was raging along the west coast of Maui from sunrise, mixed in with clouds and bursts of rain. When the rain stopped, white caps could be seen dancing along the gray ocean below the mountainous course.
The only way players could have claimed to get the short end of the draw would be if the wind had died after play was suspended. Everyone faced the same conditions, except for those who didn't have to play.
"I got off to a great start, but that's the way it goes. I'm sure they made the decision that's best for all the guys," Simpson said. "But the good news is, I had a good start and I'm playing well. We're just trying to keep the ball in play and in front of us and I was able to make a couple of putts. And that's what you have to do on a day like today."
So much for starting the year in paradise. Kapalua in this kind of weather felt more like work than a working vacation.
The 40-mph gusts became too much when Carl Pettersson lagged a 40-foot putt that was slowing around the hole until a gust came up and blew it another 30 feet and just off the green. Hunter Mahan went to address a putt and the ball blew a few feet forward. Ian Poulter said he used his umbrella to shield the wind so he could mark his ball on the green, but when the umbrella moved, so did his golf ball.
"You couldn't identify the best players out here," Pettersson said.
The last time a round was washed out on the PGA Tour was at The Players Championship in 2005, when 30 players were on a soggy Sawgrass course. That tournament finished on Monday, and this one is also scheduled for a Monday finish. With only a 30-man field, it should be no problem getting it finished by then.
But 36 holes figures to be brutal on the caddies who walk a Plantation Course built on a mountain.
"I'm not sure how I'm going to feel," Pettersson said.
Bubba Watson, who had yet to tee off, said it looked like "goofy golf" from what he saw on television. FedEx Cup champion Brandt Snedeker was on the practice range and told of an 8-iron that only went about 50 yards.
"I could have caught it if I ran fast enough," he said.
Those were the kind of shots that counted on the golf course.
Players were averaging about 350 yards off the tee on the first hole, with the trade wind at their backs. On the third hole, dead into the wind, no one hit a drive longer than 248 yards except for Stallings — his went 265 yards, only because it hit a cart path and disappeared into the native grass and was never found.
Fowler hit a driver and a 5-iron on the third hole. It's usually a wedge.
"Numbers were kind of irrelevant at times," Fowler said, referring to yardages.
That happens all the time in golf, especially on links courses. The problem, however, was on the putting greens. And the back nine is the most exposed to the wind.
Why even start?
"We aren't really looking for these gusts up to 40 mph," White said. "We had gusts up to 42 mph. I don't think you can just not try to play."
Kuchar was on the eighth tee when play was stopped. He stood over his 4-iron, then back off. He got back into position to play, and then backed off again.
"It just felt too funny to pull the trigger," he said.
Players originally were told to stay on the course to see if conditions would improve, and before long, they were brought back to the clubhouse. About an hour later, White met with them in the dining room to tell them the day was over.

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Golf-Play abandoned for second straight day at Kapalua

Jan 5 (Reuters) - The official start of the 2013 PGA Tour was postponed for a second consecutive day because of strong gusting winds at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions in Hawaii on Saturday.
First-round play in the PGA Tour's season-opening event had been entirely scrapped on Friday because of similar conditions and hopes of playing 36 holes on Saturday had to be abandoned.
Winds gusted up to 40mph (64.4 kph) across the Kapalua Resort's Plantation Course, making the layout unplayable. On some of the more exposed holes on the back nine, golf balls rolled uphill when dropped on the greens as a test by officials.
With the weather expected to improve over the next two days, organisers said they planned to complete 36 holes on Sunday and 18 on Monday in a tournament cut to 54 holes.
While 24 players in the elite, winners-only field of 30 were able to tee off on Friday before the first-round scores were wiped out, not a single shot was struck on Saturday.

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Insight: Security fears dogged Canada debate on China energy bid

OTTAWA (Reuters) - In September, two months after China's state-owned CNOOC Ltd made an unexpected $15.1 billion bid for Canadian energy company Nexen Inc, Canada's spy agency told ministers that takeovers by Chinese companies may threaten national security.
The rare warning from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), which was disclosed to Reuters by intelligence sources, did not stop the takeover. That was approved by Canadian authorities earlier this month.
But the intervention and an influential U.S. lawmaker's warning in October that Canadian companies should be careful about doing business with Chinese telecom equipment companies Huawei Technologies Co and ZTE Corp made the approval process for the deal more difficult than initially expected.
"CSIS did not like the Nexen bid and thought it was a bad idea for Chinese firms to be investing in the oil sands. It all played into their greater fears about firms like Huawei," said one person familiar with the agency's concerns. "They do not want to wake up one day and realize a crucial sector of the economy is under the control of foreign interests."
And after listening to the spy service, which usually keeps a low profile, Canada drew up surprisingly tough foreign investment rules that were unveiled when approving the Nexen deal, China's biggest-ever successful foreign takeover. In a clampdown on companies it deems influenced by foreign governments, Canada will block similar purchases in the future.
CSIS has been silent about what it said to Ottawa on the Nexen transaction, and it declined to comment for this story. It didn't specifically recommend the CNOOC deal be blocked, but rather warned more generally about such deals with Chinese entities, the person said.
In reality, the government was unlikely to want to block the CNOOC bid, given a high-profile push by Prime Minister Stephen Harper earlier in the year to boost ties with China, and given that a lot of Nexen's assets are outside Canada, and it has underperformed other energy companies.
SPECIFIC WORRIES
By pushing back aggressively, CSIS ensured that it got foreign investment policy tightened significantly to deter similar such takeovers by companies under the sway of foreign governments.
"I think people at CSIS and elsewhere are going 'Good. That was a very good response by the government'," said Ray Boisvert, a former CSIS assistant director of intelligence, who retired this year after almost three decades at the agency.
"It did reflect some of those deep strategic concerns that practitioners have had about this kind of investment."
Specific worries include theft of Canadian intellectual property, espionage, computer hacking and foreign companies gaining too much influence over crucial sectors of the economy, said the person familiar with the agency's views.
The government could, in theory, nationalize assets if it thought foreign control was problematic. But the pro-business Conservatives would likely find it politically unpalatable to take such a step.
"To be blunt, Canadians have not spent years reducing the ownership of sectors of the economy by our own governments, only to see them bought and controlled by foreign governments instead," Harper said as he announced the new investment rules.
In October, the U.S. House of Representatives' Intelligence Committee urged U.S. firms to stop doing business with Huawei and another Chinese telecom equipment company ZTE on the grounds that Beijing could use products made by the two companies to spy.
The House Intelligence Committee's chairman, Rep. Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican, urged Canada to take a similar stance, and two days later, the Canadian government indicated it would not let Huawei help build a secure government communications network because of possible security risks.
"The Huawei business caused a lot of political complications for the CNOOC bid," another person familiar with the CNOOC deal said of the U.S. committee's report.
Both Huawei and ZTE have repeatedly denied the allegations in the report, and China's foreign ministry dismissed as "baseless" the idea that security concerns could impede commercial ties.
"We hope that the relevant party can objectively and justly treat Chinese companies' overseas investment and cooperation plans, and stop actions which harm Chinese companies' image and do more to benefit the promotion of bilateral trade and business cooperation," said ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying.
CLANDESTINE SUPPORT
In its annual report, released in September, CSIS noted risks that included espionage and illegal technology transfers, and said some foreign state-owned enterprises had "pursued opaque agendas or received clandestine intelligence support for their pursuits" in Canada.
The agency did not give details, but added: "When foreign companies with ties to foreign intelligence agencies or hostile governments seek to acquire control over strategic sectors of the Canadian economy, it can represent a threat to Canadian security interests."
CSIS, hit by controversy in 2010 after its head suggested China had too much influence over some Canadian provincial politicians, did not mention any country or firm in its report.
It is unclear how much, if any, influence the United States had on the Canadian authorities' foreign investment policy.
Fen Hampson, head of the global security program at the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ontario, said he had learned that a U.S. official visited Ottawa in the last few months to discuss mutual concerns about foreign state-owned enterprises.
U.S. Ambassador David Jacobson told Reuters he was not aware of such a meeting, but he noted that officials from the two countries met constantly. "I would be surprised if almost any issue you could think of has not come up in one or more of those conversations," he said. "The United States has not sought to influence Canada's decision with respect to that (CNOOC's bid)... We respect that decision."
The Canadian government did not respond to a request for a comment.
Chinese companies have bought up smaller Canadian energy firms before, but the July 23 bid for Nexen was their first attempt to buy one of the larger players.
Nexen has assets in Canada, the North Sea, Nigeria and the Gulf of Mexico. Technology that Nexen and its partners use for deep sea drilling could interest CNOOC. [ID:nL4N09N3R5]
Asked about the CSIS concerns, a spokeswoman for Industry Minister Christian Paradis replied: "The government has the authority to take any measures it considers necessary to protect national security."
Yet two people close to the deal noted that the Canadian government did not exercise its option to do a separate review of the potential security risks of the CNOOC-Nexen bid, again signaling its concerns were tied to overall Chinese investment rather than to this particular deal.
Under the new rules, which Paradis is responsible for enforcing, foreign state-owned enterprises can no longer buy controlling stakes in assets in the oil sands, the biggest reserve of crude oil outside Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
Such enterprises can buy minority stakes in the oil sands, or majority stakes in companies outside the oil sands. Companies deemed to have strong government links will be treated with particular caution wherever they propose to invest.
"When it comes to our security and intelligence services, they would rather pull up the drawbridge than let it down," said Hampson, co-author of a report on trade ties between Canada and emerging nations that he discussed with Harper in June.

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Huawei shows off 6.1-inch Android phablet ahead of CES [video]

It looks like things are going to get worse before they start to get better. Further blurring the line between a smartphone that is too big to be used comfortably and a tablet the is too small to be used efficiently, Huawei has plans to unveil a new smartphone-tablet hybrid device at the Consumer Electronics Show in early January. The Android “phablet” was recently shown off by a Huawei executive outside of a Huawei store in Guangzhou, China, and Engadget lists among the device’s key specs a 6.1-inch 1080p display with a pixel density of 316 ppi, a 1.8GHz quad-core processor, a 4,000 mAh battery and a case that measure just 9.9 millimeters thick. A video of the device follows below.

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Iran says defeats cyber attack on industrial sites

DUBAI (Reuters) - An Internet virus attacked computers at industrial sites in southern Iran, in an apparent extension of a covert cyber war that initially targeted the country's nuclear facilities, an Iranian official said.
Iran, the world's No. 5 oil exporter, has tightened online security since its uranium enrichment centrifuges were hit in 2010 by the Stuxnet computer worm, which Tehran believes was planted by arch-adversaries Israel or the United States.
The unit tasked with fighting cyber attacks, the Passive Defence Organisation, said a virus had infected several sites in Hormozgan province in recent months but was neutralised.
"Enemies are constantly attacking Iran's industrial units through Internet networks in order to create disruptions," Ali Akbar Akhavan, head of the Hormozgan branch of the organisation, was quoted as saying by the Iranian Students' News Agency on Tuesday.
"This virus has even penetrated some manufacturing industries in Hormozgan province, but with timely measures and the cooperation of skilled hackers in the province, the progress of this virus was halted," Akhavan said.
"As an example, the Bandar Abbas Tavanir Co., a producer of electricity in the province and even adjacent provinces, has been the target of Internet attacks in recent months," he said.
Bandar Abbas is the capital of Hormozgan province on Iran's southern coast and home to an oil refinery and container port.
Israeli officials have threatened military action against Iranian nuclear facilities if Western sanctions on Tehran's banking and oil sectors do not persuade the Islamic Republic to shelve its disputed atomic program.
Western powers suspect Iran is trying to develop the means to produce nuclear weapons. Tehran says it is enriching uranium only for civilian energy.
Iranian authorities said in April that a computer virus was detected inside the control systems of Kharg Island - which handles the vast majority of Iran's crude oil exports - but the terminal had remained operational.
Cyber attackers also slowed Iran's Internet and attacked its offshore oil and gas platforms this year, Iranian officials have said.

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Iran media report new cyberattack by Stuxnet worm

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — An Iranian semi-official news agency says there has been another cyberattack by the sophisticated computer worm Stuxnet, this time on the industries in the country's south.
Tuesday's report by ISNA quotes provincial civil defense chief Ali Akbar Akhavan as saying the virus targeted a power plant and some other industries in Hormozgan province in recent months.
Akhavan says Iranian computer experts were able to "successfully stop" the worm.
Iran has repeatedly claimed defusing cyber worms and malware, including Stuxnet and Flame viruses that targeted the vital oil sector, which provides 80 percent of the country's foreign revenue.
Tehran has said both worms are part of a secret U.S.-Israeli program that seeks to destabilize Iran's nuclear program.
The West suspects Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program, a charge Tehran denies.

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Phablet wars heat up with ZTE’s quad-core Nubia Z5

2013 is shaping up to be the year of the “phablet” with virtually ever major handset maker preparing to challenge Samsung’s (005930) impressive Galaxy Note lineup. While there’s no clear definition on how large a phablet is, most tend to have screens that hover in the 5-inch range, though Huawei’s upcoming 6.1-inch smartphone will only push that boundary. ZTE’s newly announced Nubia Z5 packs a 5-inch display with full-HD 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, an aluminum case, a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, a 13-megapixel rear, a 2-megapixel front camera, Dolby sound and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. It even edges out HTC’s (2498) slim DROID DNA in terms of size with slightly thinner dimensions and a larger battery: 2,300 mAh versus the DNA’s 2,020 mAh. The only deal-breaker is the Nubia Z5 likely won’t be available in the U.S., but importers drooling over its specs can pick one up in China for about $554.

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