Randi Zuckerberg on what it means to be "Dot Complicated" (Q&A)

Randi Zuckerberg knows a thing or two about complications caused by the Internet.

The sister of Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has seen her fair share of controversial choices or awkward missteps become fodder for attacks from those who view her as the ultimate benefactor of nepotism.

After serving as Facebook's marketing director for six years, Zuckerberg struck out on her own with Zuckerberg Media, a media and production company that fashioned her an executive producer of the oft-panned Bravo reality television flop "Startups: Silicon Valley." She's also the lead singer for a cover band called Feedbomb, which is comprised of past and present Facebookers.

Come fall 2013, we'll all get to read more about her online and offline adventures, as the other Zuckerberg is turning her overexposed existence into a lifestyle book entitled "Dot Complicated" for HarperCollins. She's also penning a companion picture book for children that will also be released this fall.

CNET went to Zuckerberg to get the scoop on the pending publications, and we couldn't help but ask about how her brother feels about her putting their private lives on display. Our questions and her answers are included in their entirety below.

Q:What does the title, "Dot Complicated," mean to you and why do you feel it best describes your story?
Zuckerberg: Technology has changed virtually every part of our lives. We live in a world of such rapid innovation - as the tools change, so do the social norms and etiquette that go with them. While many things have gotten easier and more efficient, many aspects of our day-to-day lives and managing our personal relationships have become a lot more complicated. That's why I'm so excited to be writing Dot Complicated, because I am passionate about helping people untangle their modern, wired lives.

Personally, along with being part of the team that built Facebook from early on, I also grew up on social media. These tools have affected how I raise my son, how I balance my career, and how I interact with friends and family, to name a few. I've seen firsthand how this new digital era can be both wonderful, and utterly complicated, at the same time. I can only imagine how confusing things must feel for millions of people who use these tools, every single day, and don't live right in the heart of all the action. If I can use my own experiences, knowledge, and lessons learned to help other people navigate their modern, digital lives (while having some fun along the way,) I would consider the book a huge success.

Who do you see as the primary audience for the book and why do you feel the need to publish your story now?
Zuckerberg: There's a lot of great content out there about "technology" or about "lifestyle" -- but I saw a gap missing at the intersection of the two. How technology is changing the way we interact with the people around us, how it affects our love lives, our personal lives, our work lives. My hope is that the book will be interesting and useful to a broad audience, whether you are a lightweight consumer of these tools, a parent who wants to stay up-to-date with the latest trends "the kids are using," a student who wants a competitive advantage in the job market, or a business who wants to better understand the modern consumer's habits and social issues.

The reason for publishing the story now is that I just launched my newsletter, also named Dot Complicated a few weeks ago. The newsletter has already received such positive early traction and feedback, that I felt the timing was right to expand it into a book as well, especially since the book process requires a lengthier timeline. I plan to discuss many of the topics we cover in my Dot Complicated newsletter -- complexities of the modern, digital world we live in -- including issues around etiquette, privacy, social, identity, career, love, family, and more. I will also discuss where social media is heading and how it will continue to influence every facet of our modern world -- from our personal relationships and professional careers to the bigger picture of global initiatives and politics.

It's also a great time for me personally to be publishing this book, as I'm navigating how to balance my career and new motherhood and how to raise my son the right way in this digital age. I've engaged with a lot of people online who are grappling with similar challenges and questions and I feel strongly that right now is the time for that approachable voice of technology. I didn't want to limit the audience, which is why I'm working on both an adult nonfiction book, as well as a children's book, with HarperCollins. In this digital world we live in, it's important for children to be tech-savvy and to understand the benefits and risks of technology from early on. Which means speaking to them directly.

Is there anything that will surprise readers? Can you provide a few examples?
Zuckerberg: I think what has surprised me the most in my research and conversations, is that no matter where in the world you go, no matter if you're speaking to someone in Silicon Valley or Nebraska, Dubai or Delhi, we're all grappling with the same issues related to technology and our lives. I did a lot of public speaking last year, and no matter where I went, people always asked the same questions: how can I better understand what my children are doing online? How can I ask my significant other not to immediately reach for their
tablet in bed? How can I make sure I don't lose my job to someone who is younger and more tech-savvy? I plan to address many of these topics in the book -- some of the topics may surprise readers, or feel slightly uncomfortably familiar/intimate at first, but when you break past the news about the latest gadgets, devices, updates, and software, you realize that technology is nothing without the humans on the other side of it. These are issues that affect all of us in our own lives and need to be openly discussed as a society.

Can you share one of the funnier anecdotes you plan to include in the book?
Zuckerberg: There are too many to choose from. Because tech and pop culture are coming together more closely every day, I've had the opportunity to check things off my bucket list I never dreamed I'd be able to do, like walking the red carpet for The Golden Globes, getting a personal phone call from The White House, and hosting a live video chat with United Nations Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon and rock band Linkin Park ... together. I can't give away all my good stories just yet, but suffice it to say that I think readers will be thoroughly entertained, as well as educated.

The Bravo show "Startups: Silicon Valley" rubbed many people working in the technology industry the wrong way. Will you discuss the show, the cast, the ratings, and address the critics in the book?
Zuckerberg: Of course I'll talk about the show in the book. It will just be a small part of the book, as I have so much content to cover, and this was just one experience I am lucky to have been part of, but I've done a lot of reflecting over the past few months on what I think the future of media/television looks like in the digital age -- and I've purposefully remained quiet about everything, so I can write about it for the first time in the book. I hope that readers will be pleasantly surprised by and interested in the learnings I have to share, based on my recent experiences working with Bravo and other media partners.

Do you expect Dot Complicated to incite a strong negative reaction among Valley types?
Zuckerberg: You know, it seems that these days, everything that anyone does incites a strong negative reaction, doesn't it? It's so easy to hide behind our online handles and criticize others. I'm just focused on doing the best work I can, and through this project, helping people navigate their complicated, wired lives. Of course not everyone will agree with every single thing I have to say -- and I wouldn't want them to! Would you honestly want to read a book that didn't have anything provocative, controversial, or thought-provoking in it?

The tone of Dot Complicated will be friendly, informative, and a little bit sassy -- just like our newsletter. I'm thankful for all of the great feedback we've been receiving on the newsletter, which in turn is helping me shape the book so that it reaches readers at a raw, human, and relatable level.

Has your brother expressed any concern about a nonfiction book that relates stories from your personal life, stories that will surely include details about his own private life?
Zuckerberg: The book will draw from some of my own personal experiences, in order to tell a broader story about the complexities of our wired world. Some media outlets have called this book a "memoir," which makes me laugh, because that couldn't possibly be further from the truth of what this book is. Who writes a memoir at age 30?! My goal with this book is to spark dialogue and inspire people of all ages to embrace technology and the new sets of norms that come with sharing content online -- something my family has always been supportive of.

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Elderly Abandoned at World's Largest Religious Festival

Every 12 years, the northern Indian city of Allahabad plays host to a vast gathering of Hindu pilgrims called the Maha Kumbh Mela. This year, Allahabad is expected to host an estimated 80 million pilgrims between January and March. (See Kumbh Mela: Pictures From the Hindu Holy Festival)

People come to Allahabad to wash away their sins in the sacred River Ganges. For many it's the realization of their life's goal, and they emerge feeling joyful and rejuvenated. But there is also a darker side to the world's largest religious gathering, as some take advantage of the swirling crowds to abandon elderly relatives.

"They wait for this Maha Kumbh because many people are there so nobody will know," said one human rights activist who has helped people in this predicament and who wished to remain anonymous. "Old people have become useless, they don't want to look after them, so they leave them and go."

Anshu Malviya, an Allahabad-based social worker, confirmed that both men and women have been abandoned during the religious event, though it has happened more often to elderly widows. Numbers are hard to come by, since many people genuinely become separated from their groups in the crowd, and those who have been abandoned may not admit it. But Malviya estimates that dozens of people are deliberately abandoned during a Maha Kumbh Mela, at a very rough guess.

To a foreigner, it seems puzzling that these people are not capable of finding their own way home. Malviya smiles. "If you were Indian," he said, "you wouldn't be puzzled. Often they have never left their homes. They are not educated, they don't work. A lot of the time they don't even know which district their village is in."

Once the crowd disperses and the volunteer-run lost-and-found camps that provide temporary respite have packed away their tents, the abandoned elderly may have the option of entering a government-run shelter. Conditions are notoriously bad in these homes, however, and many prefer to remain on the streets, begging. Some gravitate to other holy cities such as Varanasi or Vrindavan where, if they're lucky, they are taken in by temples or charity-funded shelters.

In these cities, they join a much larger population, predominantly women, whose families no longer wish to support them, and who have been brought there because, in the Hindu religion, to die in these holy cities is to achieve moksha or Nirvana. Mohini Giri, a Delhi-based campaigner for women's rights and former chair of India's National Commission for Women, estimates that there are 10,000 such women in Varanasi and 16,000 in Vrindavan.

But even these women are just the tip of the iceberg, says economist Jean Drèze of the University of Allahabad, who has campaigned on social issues in India since 1979. "For one woman who has been explicitly parked in Vrindavan or Varanasi, there are a thousand or ten thousand who are living next door to their sons and are as good as abandoned, literally kept on a starvation diet," he said.

According to the Hindu ideal, a woman should be looked after until the end of her life by her male relatives—with responsibility for her shifting from her father to her husband to her son. But Martha Chen, a lecturer in public policy at Harvard University who published a study of widows in India in 2001, found that the reality was often very different.

Chen's survey of 562 widows of different ages revealed that about half of them were supporting themselves in households that did not include an adult male—either living alone, or with young children or other single women. Many of those who did live with their families reported harassment or even violence.

According to Drèze, the situation hasn't changed since Chen's study, despite the economic growth that has taken place in India, because widows remain vulnerable due to their lack of education and employment. In 2010, the World Bank reported that only 29 percent of the Indian workforce was female. Moreover, despite changes in the law designed to protect women's rights to property, in practice sons predominantly inherit from their parents—leaving women eternally dependent on men. In a country where 37 percent of the population still lives below the poverty line, elderly dependent relatives fall low on many people's lists of priorities.

This bleak picture is all too familiar to Devshran Singh, who oversees the Durga Kund old people's home in Varanasi. People don't pay toward the upkeep of their relatives, he said, and they rarely visit. In one case, a doctor brought an old woman to Durga Kund claiming she had been abandoned. After he had gone, the woman revealed that the doctor was her son. "In modern life," said Singh, "people don't have time for their elderly."

Drèze is currently campaigning for pensions for the elderly, including widows. Giri is working to make more women aware of their rights. And most experts agree that education, which is increasingly accessible to girls in India, will help improve women's plight. "Education is a big force of social change," said Drèze. "There's no doubt about that."

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Pistorius Family: 'Law Must Run Its Course'

South African Olympian Oscar Pistorius is spending time his family today after the athlete was freed on $113,000 bail Friday.

"We realise that the law must run its course, and we would not have it any other way," the Olympian's uncle, Arnold Pistorius said in a statement on Saturday.

The Pistorius family expressed their gratitude that the former Olympian was allowed out of jail before the trial.

"This constitutes a moment of relief under these otherwise very grave circumstances" said Arnold Pistorius."We are extremely thankful that Oscar is now home."

Pistorius, 26, is charged with premeditated murder in the Valentine's Day shooting of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

While the prosecution argued that the world-renowned athlete was a flight risk and had a history of violence, South African Magistrate Desmond Nair, who presided over the case, disagreed.

FULL COVERAGE: Oscar Pistorius

"He regards South Africa as his permanent place of abode, he has no intention to relocate to any other country" Nair said during his two hour ruling, before concluding with, "the accused has made the case to be released on bail."

'Blade Runner' Murder Charges: Oscar Pistorius Out on Bail Watch Video

Oscar Pistorius Granted Bail in Murder Case Watch Video

Pistoriuis will have to adhere to strict conditions to stay out of jail before the trial. He must give up all his guns, he cannot drink alcohol or return to the home where the shooting occurred, and he must check in with a police department twice a week.

Oscar Pistorius is believed to be staying at an uncle's house as he awaits trial.

RELATED: Oscar Pistorius Case: Key Elements to the Murder Investigation

During the hearing, the prosecution argued that Pistorius shot Steenkamp after an argument, while the defense laid out an alternate version of events saying Pistorius mistook his girlfriend for an intruder.

Nair took issue with the head detective originally in charge of the case, who he said "blundered" in gathering evidence and was removed from the case after it was revealed he is facing attempted murder charges.

RELATED: Oscar Pistorius Case: Lead Det. Hilton Botha to Be Booted From Investigation Team

After the magistrate's decision, cheers erupted in the courtroom from the Pistorius camp. Pistorius' trial is expected to start in six to eight months, with his next pre-trial court date in June.

Reeva Steenkamp Family Reaction

Steenkamp's father, Barry Steenkamp told the South African Beeld newspaper that the 26-year-old athlete will "suffer" if he is lying about accidentally shooting 29-year-old model.

PHOTOS: Oscar Pistorius Charged with Murder

Barry Steenkamp went on to say that the Pistorius will have to "live with his conscience" if he intentionally shot Reeva.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Jailed Tymoshenko fit to leave hospital: ministry

KIEV: Ukraine's jailed former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko is now fit to leave the civilian hospital where she has spent the last nine months with back problems, the health ministry said Friday, paving the way for her return to prison.

A medical commission "has concluded that the patient Y. Tymoshenko no longer needs further treatment or rehabilitation in hospital," the ministry said in a statement.

Tymoshenko, 52, has been in prison since August 2011 but was moved in May last year from her Kharkiv prison to hospital because she was in acute pain from a herniated disc.

The charismatic figurehead of the 2004 Orange Revolution was convicted of abuse of power and jailed for seven years in 2011 after losing a 2010 presidential race to Viktor Yanukovych.

She is currently on trial on separate charges of fraud and tax evasion and was also charged in January with ordering the 1996 gangland-style shooting of a lawmaker.

Her imprisonment has provoked a serious rift between Ukraine and the European Union, which has called the charges against her politically motivated.

- AFP/jc

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LulzSec double agent sentencing postponed

Hector Xavier Monsegur, aka "Sabu," will likely get a reduced sentence for signing a plea agreement and serving as an informant.

(Credit:
James Martin/CNET)

Hector Xavier Monsegur, better known by his nom de plume"Sabu," was slated to face sentencing in New York City today for his role hacking into public and private web sites as part of the hacktivists operating under the LulzSec label. All told, he faced a maximum time behind bars of 124 years associated with his guilty plea on ten counts of bank fraud and one count of identity theft.

But Monsegur, who subsequently worked as a double agent for the FBI, still awaits his fate. The authorities abruptly postponed his sentencing. No explanation was offered.

His cooperation with the authorities led to the March 2012 arrest. of several LulzSec members. Monsegur was later described in court documents as having "proactively" cooperated with the FBI as it built its case. Following his arrest, the Wall Street Journal reported that information supplied by Monsegur had helped the FBI stop over 300 planned hacks. It's widely believed that Monsegur will receive a reduced sentence for signing a plea agreement and serving as an informant.

The indictments against Monsegur pertain to hacks carried out against websites operated by the Tunisian, Algerian, Yemeni and Zimbabwe governments between December 2010 and May 2011. They also include the launching of distributed denial of service attacks on the United States Senate, PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, Bethesda Softworks,Fox News, the Chicago Tribune newspaper site, Sony Pictures Europe, Sony Music Entertainment, PBS, and Nintendo.

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Meet One of Mars Rover Curiosity’s Earthbound Twins

Like its twin that's busy exploring Mars aboard the rover Curiosity, the device known as SAM II spends its days as if it were 200 million miles away, in a very different environment than our own.

Temperatures around the instrument plunge to minus 130ºF (-90°C), the air pressure is one percent of Earth's, and the atmosphere it sits in consists largely of carbon dioxide.

But this second SAM—short for Sample Analysis on Mars—resides in suburban Maryland, inside a tightly controlled chamber where it plays a little-known but essential role as a test instrument for the Curiosity mission to Mars. (Watch: How Curiosity took a self-portrait.)

And for a short time last month, this microwave-size "test bed" SAM was out of its deep freeze for repairs and upgrades, offering a rare peak into exactly what it takes to keep a rover and its scientific instruments alive and well on Mars.

Simply put, SAM is the most complex and sophisticated suite of scientific equipment to ever land on another celestial body.

The gold-covered box holds two tiny cylinder ovens that can vaporize Mars's rocks and soil at temperatures up to 1800°F (1,000 °C). Three instruments (spectrometers) then identify and analyze the gases produced by the ovens, as well as those collected from the Martian atmosphere. Some six miles (nine kilometers) of electrical wire connect these and many other parts together.

SAM's task constitutes a primary aim of Curiosity's mission: investigating whether Mars preserves the chemical ingredients needed for life, including organic carbon. (Related: Intriguing new evidence of a watery past on Mars.)

SAM has already analyzed some Martian soil and will very soon get its first taste of Martian rock, dug out with a drill last week and crushed into powder. A pre-programmed examination of that rock powder—a first-of-its-kind procedure—is scheduled to begin inside SAM shortly. (Related: Curiosity completes first full drill for Martian rock samples.

Maryland SAM in the Operating Room

But for the SAM on Mars to operate safely and properly, it needs the Maryland SAM (a 99 percent duplicate) as a test bed.

Every command sent to the instrument on Mars must first be run through the twin on Earth to make sure it doesn't confuse the operating system, doesn't open a wrong valve, doesn't set into motion a fatal cascade of events. So keeping the test-bed SAM in near-perfect shape is essential to Curiosity's success.

Yet some parts or connections have failed in recent months, requiring less-than-ideal workarounds. And when the SAM team recently devised additional ways to further improve their creation, they decided to bring it in for repairs.

Which is why test-bed SAM was out of its chamber last month, laid out on a gurney in a clean room at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Several days before, the liquid nitrogen piped into SAM II's chamber to keep it cold had been turned off. Myriad pipes and tubes going in were shut down. The near-vacuum pressure inside the chamber—which is the size of a washing machine and wrapped in aluminum foil—had been changed to Earth conditions.

The big chamber door (which would have exerted some 10,000 pounds, or about 4,500 kilograms, of force) was swung open.

SAM II's lustrous gold plating, needed to regulate temperatures and keep the instrument as clean as possible, had been removed, exposing the warren of intricately packed equipment and wiring inside.

In a Mylar-draped section of the room, two of the men who put both SAMs together were poking and prodding, vacuuming and tightening its insides. In their head-to-toe white cover-ups, they looked like surgeons in the OR.

One of them, Oren Sheinman, is a lead designer and builder of the two SAMs. His repair involved a heat pipe for the tunable laser spectrometer—an instrument Sheinman designed to sniff the Mars air for gases such as carbon-based methane, which could be a sign of past or present life.

Problems with SAM's heat pipe had made it difficult to ensure that the new computer instructions going up to Mars were accurate and effective, so Sheinman and colleague Bob Arvey had to find a work-around.

Speaking from behind the Mylar screen, Sheinman said that what they had created was actually similar to some spacecraft he had worked on. "Not in terms of guidance and propulsion," he said, "but in terms of system issues and sheer complexity."

"With SAM, the difficult part mechanically was packaging, because it isn't really an instrument, but an instrument suite," he said.

Discovery Requires Complexity

SAM was already the largest and heaviest instrument that Curiosity would carry, but it needed to be as small as possible to make room for Curiosity's other equipment.

Fortunately, the hardware Sheinman was working on sat near the outside of the SAM configuration; fixing a piece deeper inside would have required what he called an "excavation."

For Arvey, the primary repair job involved his specialty, the miles of wire. Because SAM has high-temperature wires to supply the ovens and low temperature wires for the instruments, all the wiring had to be crimped together rather than connected with welds.

One of those crimps, or "getters," had failed some time ago, and it too had to be replaced.

Arvey said he needed all of his 40-plus years of experience in wiring space-bound equipment (to Venus, Jupiter, Titan, and Mars) to lay out the electrical rigging of SAM.

"Everything we did in building SAM had to be made up new," he said.

It was SAM principal investigator Paul Mahaffy who decided to open up the chamber, and he says his rationale was more improvement than repair.

While the several malfunctioning parts were making life difficult, his primary goal was to better stabilize the test-bed SAM so the team could send up commands that would allow Mars SAM to make more sensitive measurements.

Curiosity is a "discovery-driven" mission, Mahaffy said, and that means demands placed on the faraway rover and its instruments are ever changing.  The result is a constant process of tweaking, upgrading and modifying as scientists and engineers learn about Mars and look to devise ways to follow new leads.

Everyone Needs a Test Bed

The Goddard test bed is hardly the only one used for Curiosity.

The home institutions of the principal investigator for all ten Curiosity instruments have their test beds, and their results have to be squared with the entire Curiosity system, headquartered at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

JPL has its "Mars yard," where duplicate Curiosity rovers are put through their paces—everything from climbing a steep incline to approaching and drilling a rock.

Using the drill, for instance, involves more than a hundred discrete commands, and they have been put through their paces at the yard in advance of Curiosity's first ever Mars drilling.

"It's kind of unexpected and occasionally funny, but the test beds tend to come up with more problems than the actual equipment on Mars," said Curiosity mission manager Michael Watkins.

Since the equipment and instruments are virtual duplicates, Watkins said it's not an issue of quality. Rather, problems arise because the equipment is made to operate under Mars atmospheric and gravity conditions, which are difficult to entirely reproduce on Earth.

The test equipment is also used far more frequently and aggressively than what's on the actual Curiosity.

The constant testing slows a mission down at times, and after six months on Mars the rover has traveled only about a quarter mile, or less than half a kilometer.

But it has been a productive trip. Since landing on Mars in early August, Curiosity has identified a once fast-flowing stream bed on the planet, found tantalizing but unconfirmed signs of organic materials, and has drilled into low-lying bedrock and found grey (rather than the usual Martian red) rock inside.

The rover's travels on Mars are officially set to continue until the summer of 2014, but if Curiosity and its instruments remain healthy, all involved expect it will operate for several years beyond that.

With that kind of time frame in mind, the SAM team recently arranged to have its busy test bed moved to a building that has a supply of liquid nitrogen just outside a back door.

Before that, researchers and technicians had to roll large, heavy canisters of the gas long distances into a different test room. Hardly ideal for a test bed that's likely to be busy for a long time to come.

Marc Kaufman is working on a book about Curiosity and Mars for National Geographic Books.

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Oscar Pistorius Granted Bail in Murder Case

Oscar Pistorius was granted bail today in a South African court, meaning he can be released from jail for the six to eight months before his trial for the allegedly premeditated killing of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

Magistrate Desmond Nair, in reading his lengthy decision, said, "The issue before me is whether this accused, being who is and the assets he has [here], would seek to duck and dive all over the world."
His conclusion:
"I cannot find that he is a flight risk."

Nair said, "The accused has made a case to be released on bail."

PHOTOS: Paralympics Champion Charged in Killing

The judge also said he had to weigh whether Pistorius would be a danger to others. He noted that Pistorius has been accused of using foul language against people in arguments and once threatened to break someone's legs, but he said that was different from someone with an arrest record of violence.

"I appreciate that a person is dead, but I don't think that is enough," he said.

Nair also said he could not be influenced by the public's "shock and outrage" if Pistorius is released.

A member of Pistorius' defense team told ABC News, "he is going to be released today."

Despite the ruling, prosecutors displayed confidence, with one of them emerging from the courthouse today to say, "We still believe we have the evidence to convict Oscar Pistorius."

The court set bail at about $113,000 (1 million rand) and June 4 as the date for Pistorius' next court appearance.

The other bail conditions are: Pistorius cannot leave the country; he must hand over his passports; he cannot return to his home as long as it's an active crime scene; he needs permission to leave the Pretoria area; he must visit a police station on a daily basis and be available to a probation officer at all times via cellphone; he is not allowed any communication with prosecution witnesses; he cannot drink alcohol; and he must relinquish his firearms.

"Do you understand?" the magistrate asked him.

"Yes, sir," Pistorius replied.

Alexander Joe/AFP/Getty Images

'Blade Runner' Shocker: Lead Detective Replaced Watch Video

Speaking for the family, Arnold Pistorius, the Olympian's uncle, said, "Although we are obviously relieved that Oscar has been granted bail, this is still a very sad time for the family of Reeva and for us.

"We are grateful that the Magistrate recognized the validity and strength of our application. As the family, we are convinced that Oscar's version of what happened on that terrible night will prove to be true."

The judge's ruling came on the fourth and final day of the bail hearing for Pistorius, the Olympian accused of murdering his girlfriend on Valentine's Day.

Pistorius, who gained global acclaim for racing at the 2012 London Olympics, shot his model-girlfriend through a closed bathroom. He says he killed Reeva Steenkamp accidentally, but prosecutors alleged that he took a moment to put on his prosthetic legs, indicating that he thought out and planned to kill Steenkamp when he shot her three times through the bathroom door.

Pistorius sobbed today in court. Barry Roux, his defense attorney, said the prosecution misinterpreted the assigning of intent, meaning that the runner's intent to shoot at a supposed intruder in his home cannot be transferred to someone else who was shot -- in this case, Steenkamp.

"He did not want to kill Reeva," Roux told the court.

FULL COVERAGE: Oscar Pistorius Case

When Magistrate Nair, who overheard the bail hearing, asked Roux what the charges should be if Pistorius intended to kill an intruder, the defense attorney responded that he should be charged with culpable homicide.

Culpable homicide is defined in South Africa as "the unlawful negligent killing of a human being."

Roux also made light of the prosecution's argument that Pistorius is a flight risk, saying that every time the double-amputee goes through airport security, it causes a commotion. He said that Pistorius' legs need constant maintenance and he needs medical attention for his stumps.

The prosecution argued today that the onus was on Pistorius to provide his version of events, and his version was improbable.

Prosecutor Gerrie Nel also spoke of Pistorius' fame and his disability, even relating him to Wikipedia founder Julian Assange, who is now confined to Ecuador's London Embassy, where he has been granted political asylum.
"[Assange's] facial features are as well known as Mr. Pistorius' prostheses," Nel said.

Nel argued that Pistorius' prostheses do not set him apart, stating that it's no different to any other feature, and the court cannot be seen to treat people with disabilities accused of a crime, or famous people accused of crime, any differently.

Pistorius has said that in the early hours of Feb. 14 he was closing his balcony doors when he heard a noise from the bathroom. Fearing an intruder, and without his prosthetic legs on, he grabbed a gun from under his bed and fired through the closed bathroom door, he told the court.

But prosecutors say that's implausible, that the gun's holster was found under the side of the bed where Steenkamp slept, and that Pistorius would have seen she wasn't there. Prosecutors also say the angle at which the shots were fired shows Pistorius was already wearing his prosthetics when he fired.

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Lone firefighter finds environmental harm's sharp edge

Jacob Aron, reporter

(Image: G. M. B. Akash, Decaying Earth, 2011)

The consequences of environmental degradation are global, but this award-winning photograph shows how they are also urgently personal and unpredictable.

The Buriganga river in Bangladesh is one of the most polluted in the world, due to the waste that is dumped by nearby textile factories. When this mound of rubbish near the river was ignited by a stray cigarette butt, the resulting fire threatened to engulf an entire neighbourhood of makeshift homes. One man stepped in to douse the flames.

"Many people could have lost everything in this fire if Sumon had not jumped to stop the roaring flames all by himself," says photographer G. M. B. Akash "No one helped him."

This image is one of a number in the running for the British Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management Environmental Photographer of the Year award, chosen from over 3000 entries. The winners will be announced at the Royal Geographical Society in London on 9 April.

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Falling energy prices curb US inflation

WASHINGTON: US consumer prices were flat for a second month in a row in January, held down by a sharp drop in gasoline and fuel oil prices, government data released Thursday showed.

The Labour Department said its consumer price index was unchanged, while core CPI, excluding food and energy, rose 0.3 per cent.

The energy sub-index fell 1.7 per cent, its third consecutive decline, led by 3.0 per cent drops in prices for gasoline and fuel oil that offset a 1.1 per cent rise in electricity costs.

Food prices were unchanged after inching up 0.2 per cent in the prior three months.

In the overall CPI, clothing was the strongest price gainer, up 0.8 per cent.

The data underscored continued weak inflationary pressures in the sluggish economy, which contracted 0.1 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2012 despite massive stimulus from the Federal Reserve.

Year-over-year, CPI slowed for a third straight month, rising 1.6 per cent in January, its lowest rise in six months. In January 2012, CPI was up 2.9 per cent from the year-ago month.

Core CPI was up 1.9 per cent from a year ago, driven by a 3.8 per cent jump in airline fares and a 3.1 per cent rise in medical care costs.

"The year/year gain has been hovering around the two per cent mark for the past seven months, and shouldn't worry Fed officials too much," said Jennifer Lee of BMO Capital Markets.

- AFP/fa

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