Polar air mass keeps icy grip on Northeast

PORTLAND, Maine Polar air settled in earnest over the Northeast after trekking through the Midwest, grinding trains to a halt, bursting pipes and bringing further misery to folks still trying to recover from superstorm Sandy.

The coldest temperatures were expected to continue Thursday, after which conditions should slowly moderate before returning to normal, said John Koch, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service regional headquarters in Bohemia, N.Y. For the most part, temperatures have been around 10 to 15 degrees below normal, with windy conditions making it feel colder, he said.

The Canadian air mass that arrived in the Upper Midwest over the weekend prompted the National Weather Service to issue wind chill warnings across upstate New York and northern New England.

In a storm-damaged neighborhood near the beach on New York City's Staten Island, people who haven't had heat in their homes since the late October storm took refuge in tents set up by aid workers. The tents were equipped with propane heaters, which were barely keeping up with the cold, and workers were providing sleeping bags and blankets for warmth.

The temperature was expected to dip to around 11 degrees before dawn Thursday.

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Sandy victims left in the cold

Anthony Gambino has been sleeping in one of the tents off and on since Sandy severely damaged his home, CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijano reports. The former mechanic lives on disability.

"Next week they're talking about getting warmer, but let's face it, we're going into February," said Gambino. "February is unpredictable. March is unpredictable. We may get worse. We may get better. Who knows? Right now, we gotta deal with the moment, and the moment is bad."

The University of South Dakota in Vermillion offered a third consecutive night of free hotel rooms to 500 students who had to leave when a water pipe froze over an electrical room and damaged components. The cold also caused circuit problems on the Metro-North railroad serving areas north of New York City, creating rush-hour delays that were resolved by late Wednesday morning.

In northern New Hampshire, a man who crashed his snowmobile while going over a hill on Tuesday and spent a "bitterly cold night" injured and alone on a trail died on Wednesday, the state's Fish and Game Department said. Friends who went looking for John Arsenault, of Shelburne, when he didn't show up for work found him unconscious Wednesday morning, and he died later at a hospital, authorities said.

In Pennsylvania, officials at a park on Lake Erie warned visitors to stay off hollow "ice dunes" forming along the shore because of the danger of frigid water underneath. A ski resort in New Hampshire shut down Wednesday because of unsafe ski conditions: a predicted wind chill of 48 degrees below zero.

In northern Maine, the temperature dipped to as low as 36 below zero Wednesday morning. The weather service was calling for wind chills as low as minus 45.

Keith Pelletier, the owner of Dolly's Restaurant in Frenchville, said his customers were dressed in multiple layers of clothing and keeping their cars running in the parking lot while eating lunch. It was so cold that even the snowmobilers were staying home, he said.

"You take the wind chill at 39 below and take a snowmobile going 50 mph, and you're about double that," he said. "That's pretty cold."

For Anthony Cavallo, the cold was just another in a litany of big and small aggravations that began when superstorm Sandy swept through his Union Beach, N.J., neighborhood and flooded his one-story house with 4 1/2 feet of water.

Still waiting for the go-ahead to rebuild, Cavallo and his family have been living in a trailer they purchased once it became clear they couldn't afford to rent.

Wednesday's frigid temperatures temporarily froze the trailer's pipes, which Cavallo's 14-year-old daughter discovered when she tried to take a shower at 4:30 a.m. Cavallo spent the morning thawing out the pipes and stuffing hay under the trailer to help insulate them.

"Every day it's something, whether it's frozen pipes or getting jerked around for two months by insurance companies," the 48-year-old security system installer said. "I just kind of want to wake up one day and have no surprises."

In New York City, food vendor Bashir Babury contended with bone-numbing cold when he set up his cart selling coffee, bagels and pastries at 3 a.m. Wednesday. On the coldest of days, he wears layers of clothing and cranks up a small propane heater inside his cart.

"I put on two, three socks, I have good boots and two, three jackets," he said. "A hat, gloves, but when I'm working I can't wear gloves."

A little cold air couldn't keep Jo Goodwin, of Bridgewater, N.H., off the slopes at Sugarloaf ski resort in Carrabassett Valley, Maine, where she was skiing Wednesday with her husband and her sister. The snow conditions were great, and there were no lift lines.

To keep warm, she uses a toe warmer, a hand warmer, a face mask, extra underwear and an extra wool sweater. She was told the wind chill was minus 30 midway up the mountain and 50 below zero near the top.

"Sometimes," she said, "it's better not to know."

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Exterminator Charged in Pa. Doctor's Murder

An exterminator named Joseph Smith was arrested and charged today in the strangling and burning death of Philadelphia pediatrician Melissa Ketunuti.

Smith, 36, had been sent to Ketunuti's home on a service call where the two got into "some kind of argument" in Ketunuti's basement on Monday, Capt. James Clark of the Philadelphia police department said this morning.

"At her home they got into an argument. It went terribly wrong. He struck her, and knocked her to the ground," Clark said. "Immediately he jumped on top of her, started strangling her. She passed out, and then he set her body on fire."

Clark said Smith burned the woman's body "to hide evidence like DNA." He said "at some point, he bound her up." The doctor was found with her hands and feet tied behind her back.

The captain said that before today's arrest Smith's record consisted of only "minor traffic offenses."

Philadelphia Police Department/AP Photo

Pa. Doctor Killing: Person of Interest in Custody Watch Video

Philadelphia Doctor's Murder Leaves Police Baffled Watch Video

Police received a call from Ketunuti's dog-walker about the house fire around 12:30 p.m. Monday, and once inside found Ketunuti with her hands and feet bound. They believe Smith hit her and strangled her with a rope, causing her to pass out, and then bound her body and set fire to it in order to destroy evidence, including DNA evidence.

Ketunuti, 35, was fully clothed and police do not believe she was sexually assaulted.

She was a doctor at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and had lived alone in the Graduate Hospital neighborhood of the city for about three years.

Clark said that homicide detectives scoured the neighborhood for surveillance videos from nearby stores and businesses, and through the video identified the suspect.

Smith was spotted on video getting out of the vehicle and following Ketunuti to her home. The man left her home after an hour and was seen on video circling her home.

Detectives drove to Clark's home in Levittown, Pa., outside of Philadelphia where he lives with a girlfriend and her child, on Wednesday night and brought him back to the Philadelphia police station.

A silver Ford truck was towed from Smith's home, which was the same truck spotted on surveillance video Monday in Ketunuti's neighborhood, sources told ABC News affiliate WPVI.

There, he gave statements that led police to charge him with the murders, Clark said.

Smith will face charges of murder, arson, and abuse of a corpse.

Ketunuti's hospital issued a statement Tuesday that she was "a warm, caring, earnest, bright young woman with her whole future ahead of her," adding that she will be deeply missed.

"[She was] super pleasant, really nice," one neighbor said. "Just super friendly."

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Cameron promises Britons contentious vote on EU future

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday promised Britons a vote on whether the country should stay in the European Union or leave, rattling London's biggest allies and some investors by raising the prospect of uncertainty and upheaval.

Cameron announced the referendum would be held by the end of 2017, provided he wins the next election, and said that while Britain did not want to retreat from the world, public disillusionment with the EU was at "an all-time high".

"It is time for the British people to have their say. It is time for us to settle this question about Britain and Europe," Cameron said in a speech, adding that his Conservative party would campaign for the 2015 election on a promise to renegotiate the terms of Britain's EU membership.

"When we have negotiated that new settlement, we will give the British people a referendum with a very simple in or out choice to stay in the European Union on these new terms; or come out altogether. It will be an in-out referendum."

A referendum would mark the second time Britons have voted on the issue. In 1975, they decided by a wide margin to stay in the EU's predecessor, two years after the country had joined.

Domestically, Cameron stands on relatively firm ground. Most recent opinion polls have shown a slim majority would vote to leave the EU amid often bitter disenchantment about its influence on the British way of life. However, a poll this week showed a majority wanted to stay.

Cameron's position is fraught with uncertainty. He must come from behind to win the next election, secure support from the EU's 26 other states for a new British role, and hope those countries can persuade their voters to back the changes.

Critics say that in the long run-up to a vote, Britain would slip into a dangerous and damaging limbo that could leave the country adrift or pushed out of the EU.

The United States, a close ally, is also uneasy about the plan, believing it will dilute Britain's international clout. President Barack Obama told Cameron by phone last week that Washington valued "a strong UK in a strong European Union".

Some of Britain's European partners were also anxious and told Cameron on Wednesday his strategy reflected a selfish and ignorant attitude. However, Angela Merkel, the leader of EU paymaster Germany, was quick to say she was ready to discuss Cameron's ideas.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius was less diplomatic, quipping: "If Britain wants to leave Europe we will roll out the red carpet for you," echoing Cameron, who once used the same words to invite rich Frenchmen alienated by high taxes to move to Britain.

Billed by commentators as the most important speech of Cameron's career, his referendum promise ties him firmly to an issue that has bedeviled a generation of Conservative leaders.

In the past, he has been careful to avoid bruising partisan fights over Europe, an issue that undid the last two Conservative prime ministers, John Major and Margaret Thatcher.

His speech appeared to pacify a powerful Eurosceptic wing inside his own party, but deepen rifts with the Liberal Democrats, the junior partners in his coalition. Their leader, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, said the plan would undermine a fragile economic recovery.

Sterling fell to its lowest in nearly five months against the dollar on Wednesday as Cameron was speaking.

"BREXIT"?

Cameron said he would seek to claw back powers from Brussels, saying later in parliament that when it came to employment, social and environmental legislation "Europe has gone far too far".

But such a claw back - the subject of an internal audit to identify which powers he should target for repatriation - is likely to be easier said than done.

If Cameron wins the election but then fails to renegotiate Britain's membership of the EU, a 'Brexit' could loom.

Business leaders have warned that years of doubt over Britain's EU membership would damage the $2.5 trillion economy and cool the investment climate.

"Having a referendum creates more uncertainty and we don't need that," Martin Sorrell, chief executive of advertising giant WPP, told the World Economic Forum in Davos. "This is a political decision. This is not an economic decision. This isn't good news. You added another reason why people will postpone investment decisions."

Cameron has been pushed into taking such a strong position partly by the rise of the UK Independence Party, which favors complete withdrawal from the EU and has climbed to third in the opinion polls, mainly at the expense of the Conservatives.

"All he's trying to do is to kick the can down the road and to try and get UKIP off his back," said UKIP leader Nigel Farage.

Eurosceptics in Cameron's party, who have threatened to stir up trouble for the premier, were thrilled by the speech.

Conservative lawmaker Peter Bone called it "a terrific victory" that would unify 98 percent of the party. "He's the first prime minister to say he wants to bring back powers from Brussels," Bone told Reuters. "It's pretty powerful stuff".

Whether Cameron holds the referendum remains as uncertain as the Conservatives' chances of winning the election. They trail the opposition Labour party in opinion polls, and the coalition is grappling with a stagnating economy as it pushes through unpopular public spending cuts to reduce a large budget deficit.

Labour leader Ed Miliband said on Wednesday his party did not want an in/out referendum.

EU REFORM

Cameron said he would campaign for Britain to stay in the EU "with all my heart and soul", provided he secured the reforms he wants. He made clear the EU must become less bureaucratic and focus more on trade deals. It was riskier to maintain the status quo than to change, he said.

"The biggest danger to the European Union comes not from those who advocate change, but from those who denounce new thinking as heresy," he said.

Cameron said the euro zone debt crisis was forcing the bloc to change and that Britain would fight to make sure new rules were fair to the 10 countries that don't use the common currency, of which Britain is the largest.

Democratic consent for the EU in Britain was now "wafer thin", he said. "Some people say that to point this out is irresponsible, creates uncertainty for business and puts a question mark over Britain's place in the European Union," said Cameron. "But the question mark is already there: ignoring it won't make it go away."

A YouGov opinion poll on Monday showed that more people wanted to stay in the EU than leave it, the first such result in many months. But it was unclear whether that result was a blip.

Paul Chipperfield, a 53-year-old management consultant, said he liked the strategy. "Cameron's making the right move because I don't think we've had enough debate in this country," he told Reuters. "We should be part of the EU but the EU needs to recognize that not everybody's going to jump on the same bandwagon."

Asked after the speech whether other EU countries would agree to renegotiate Britain's membership, Cameron said he was an optimist and that there was "every chance of success".

"I don't want Britain to leave the EU," he told parliament later. "I want Britain to reform the EU."

In the 1975 referendum, just over 67 percent voted to stay inside with nearly 33 percent against.

(Additional reporting by Paul Taylor in Davos, Alexandra Hudson in Berlin and Brenda Goh in London; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and David Stamp)

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Steady rise in government data requests: Google

SAN FRANCISCO: Google on Wednesday reported a "steady increase" in government requests to hand over data from Internet users in the second half of 2012.

The Web giant's semi-annual "transparency report" showed the most requests came from the United States, with 8,438 requests for information about 14,868 users.

India was second with 2,431 requests for data about 4,106 users, followed by France, where Google received 1,693 requests for information about 2,063 users. Germany, Britain and Brazil rounded out the top six, Google said.

"The steady increase in government requests for our users' data continued in the second half of 2012, as usage of our services continued to grow," said Richard Salgado, Google's head of law enforcement and information security.

"User data requests of all kinds have increased by more than 70 per cent since 2009," he said in a blog posting.

"In total, we received 21,389 requests for information about 33,634 users from July through December 2012."

Google said it supplied at least some of the requested data in 68 per cent of cases, down from 76 per cent in late 2010.

In releasing details of requests in the United States, Google said 68 per cent of the requests it received from government entities were through subpoenas, which "are the easiest to get because they typically don't involve judges," according to Salgado.

Another 22 per cent were through search warrants, mostly issued by judges when there is "probable cause" related to a crime.

Google provided at least some data in 90 per cent of the requests in the United States in late 2012, compared with 94 per cent two years earlier.

Berin Szoka of the Washington think tank TechFreedom said the report shows "a disturbing growth in government surveillance online."

"On its own, the growth in number of requests for private information like emails should be alarming, especially after the Petraeus case," he said, referring to the disclosure of email exchanges that led to the resignation of CIA director David Petraeus.

"Even more disturbing is that most requests have not been reviewed by a court to ensure that law enforcement has established probable cause to believe a crime has actually been committed, as the (constitution's) Fourth Amendment generally requires."

- AFP/jc

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Tech talk 'more confusing than a foreign language'

The most confusing word in tech. Allegedly.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

You might be familiar with the term "megabyte."

For some, though, it represents an emotional megadeath.

You might know what an ISP is, but some need ESP in order to explain to themselves what this actually means.

This, at least, is the conclusion of a deeply disturbing piece of research, performed in the U.K. on behalf of Carphone Warehouse's Geek Squad.

More Technically Incorrect

As the Daily Mail translates it, real, normal human beings are more emotionally disturbed when faced with tech talk than with the Greek for "good night" or the Russian for "cheers."

It seems they begin to perspire. The electrics in their brain begin to overload. The researchers calculated that these people found it 42 percent more stressful and confusing to decipher geek than Greek.

I can sense a little kvetching and stirring in the audience, so please let me make it worse for you.

This piece of research claims that when they heard terms such as "OS" and "plug-in," the men were 138 percent more stressed than the women.

It is customary here to accept all research with at least as much salt as McDonald's puts on its fries.

So might I temper your temper by explaining that there were a mere 16 respondents in this fine scientific study.

However, Carphone Warehouse's Geek Squad has decided that the 10 most confusing tech terms from the research just have to go. The company is simply removing them from its dialogue with customers.

Here they are:

1. Algorithm


2. Beta


3. Cache


4. Phablet


5. Vlogging


6. Phishing


7. ISP


8. Trojan


9. Geo-tagging


10. Back-end

Some might be surprised that "back-end" was so low down.

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Deep freeze grips Midwest, slides toward Northeast

MADISON, Wis. The Upper Midwest remained locked in a deep freeze Wednesday as the bitter temperatures crept eastward where at least one mountain resort warned it was too cold even to ski.

Overnight, ice-covered Chicago firefighters spent hours fighting a massive fire at a warehouse on the city's South Side, hindered by the single digit chill.

The cold snap arrived Saturday night as waves of Arctic air swept south from Canada, pushing temperatures to dangerous lows and leaving a section of the country well-versed in winter's pains reeling. The National Weather Service said states from Ohio through to the far northeast of Maine could expect to be slammed by that Arctic blast on Wednesday.

The numbers so far are chilling in themselves: 35 below at Crane Lake, Minn., on Tuesday; Embarrass, Minn., at 36 below on Monday; and Babbitt, Minn., at 29 below on Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.

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Frigid weather could precede Northeast snowstorm

Meteorologist Mike Augustyniak, of CBS station WCCO, says the overall weather pattern won't change Wednesday and Thursday "with really cold stuff settled in across the Northeast and now back again to the Upper Midwest."

But he added that the Northeast could get a nasty surprise at the end of this cold snap.

"By the weekend, a (warmup) will be happening. But as that happens, late Friday into Saturday, there could actually be several inches of snow moving through the mid-Atlantic," Augustyniak reports.

The weather service issued a wind chill warning for Wednesday in the far north of Maine. In Presque Isle and Caribou, temperatures are not expected to rise above 7 below. And the wind chill could make it feel more like 40 below. Vermont was similarly afflicted, with wind chill advisories and highs peaking in the single digits. Forecasters said Boston and New York City could expect temperatures in the double digits, but that the wind chill would make it feel 5 below. And in mid-Massachusetts, high winds up to 30 mph in Worcester will add to the weather misery.

At least one ski resort in New Hampshire was planning to close Wednesday and Thursday because of the extraordinary cold. Wildcat Mountain in the White Mountains region said it was expecting temperatures in the negative double digits and a wind chill of 48 degrees below zero — conditions that would not be safe for guests or employees on the slopes.

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Deadly freeze grips Midwest

Late Tuesday, some 170 Chicago firefighters — approximately one third of the city's fire department — turned out in frigid temperatures to battle a blaze at a warehouse on the South Side. Officials said the fire prompted the department's biggest response in recent years, according to The Chicago Sun-Times. Despite the scale of the fire, firefighters' soaked jackets and hats froze, and icicles formed and dangled from hoses and hydrants.

Authorities said exposure has played a role in at least four deaths.

On Sunday, a 70-year-old man was found frozen in his unheated home in Des Plaines, Ill. And in Green Bay, Wis., a 38-year-old man was found dead outside his home Monday morning. Authorities in both cases said the victims died of hypothermia and cold exposure, with alcohol a possible contributing factor.

A 77-year-old Illinois woman also was found dead near her car in southwestern Wisconsin on Saturday night, and a 61-year-old Minnesota man was pronounced dead at a hospital after he was found in a storage building Saturday morning.

The bitter conditions were expected to persist into the weekend in the Midwest through the eastern half of the U.S., said Shawn DeVinny, a National Weather Service meteorologist in suburban Minneapolis.

Ariana Laffey, a 30-year-old homeless woman, kept warm with a blanket, three pairs of pants and six shirts as she sat on a milk crate begging near Chicago's Willis Tower on Tuesday morning. She said she and her husband spent the night under a bridge, bundled up under a half-dozen blankets.

"We're just trying to make enough to get a warm room to sleep in tonight," Laffey said.

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Clinton Says Budget Cuts Undermine Security

An energized Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stood her ground today, telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that she has overseen plans to secure diplomatic outposts around the world while cuts in State Department funding undermine those efforts.

Citing a report by the department's Accountability Review Board on the security failures that led to the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, during an attack last year, Clinton said the board is pushing for an increase in funding to facilities of more than $2 billion per year.

"Consistent shortfalls have required the department to prioritize available funding out of security accounts," Clinton told the Senate this morning, while again taking responsibility for the Benghazi attack. "And I will be the first to say that the prioritization process was at times imperfect, but as the ARB said, the funds provided were inadequate. So we need to work together to overcome that."

Clinton, showing little effect from her recent illnesses, choked up earlier in discussing the Benghazi attack.

"I stood next to President Obama as the Marines carried those flag-draped caskets off the plane at Andrews," Clinton said this morning, her voice growing hoarse with emotion. "I put my arms around the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters."

The outgoing secretary of state was the only witness to giving long-awaited testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee this morning, and will appear before the House Foreign Affairs Committee at 2 p.m.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo

Hillary Clinton's Fiery Moment at Benghazi Hearing Watch Video

Hillary Clinton to Testify on Benghazi Consulate Attack Watch Video

Hillary Clinton Suffers Concussion After Fainting Watch Video

The secretary, who postponed her testimony in December, started today by giving context to the terrorist attack.

"Any clear-eyed examination of this matter must begin with this sobering fact," Clinton began. "Since 1988, there have been 19 Accountability Review Boards investigating attacks on American diplomats and their facilities."

But the secretary did not deny her role in the failures, saying that as secretary of state, she has "no higher priority and no greater responsibility" than protecting American diplomats abroad like those killed in Benghazi.

"As I have said many times, I take responsibility, and nobody is more committed to getting this right," Clinton said. "I am determined to leave the State Department and our country safer, stronger and more secure."

Among the steps Clinton has taken, she said, is to "elevate the discussion and the decision-making to make sure there's not any" suggestions that get missed, as there were in this case.

Clinton testified that the United States needs to be able to "chew gum and walk at the same time," working to shore up its fiscal situation while also strengthening security, and she refuted the idea that across-the-board cuts slated to take place in March, commonly referred to as sequestration, were the way to do that.

"Now sequestration will be very damaging to the State Department and USAID if it does come to pass, because it throws the baby out with the bath," Clinton said, referring to the United States Agency for International Development, which administers civilian foreign aid.

While the State Department does need to make cuts in certain areas, "there are also a lot of very essential programs … that we can't afford to cut more of," she added.

More than four months have passed since the attack killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in Libya. These meetings, during which Clinton discussed the report on State Department security failures by the Accountability Review Board, were postponed because of her recent illness.

Clinton told the Senate that the State Department is on track to have 85 percent of action items based on the recommendations in the Accountability Review Board report accomplished by March, with some already implemented.

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High turnout in Israeli election, Netanyahu frontrunner

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israelis voted in surprisingly high numbers on Tuesday in an election expected to hand hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a third term in office and bolster opponents of Palestinian statehood.

However, the strong turnout, coming off the back of a long, lackluster election campaign, buoyed center-left parties which had pinned their hopes on energizing an army of undecided voters against Netanyahu and his nationalist-religious allies.

"We managed to wake up Israel. Every extra percentage point of voter turn out is another hope for an upheaval," Tzipi Livni, a former foreign minister and leader of a small centrist group, wrote on Twitter, urging supporters to head to the polls.

The prime minister's Likud party, running alongside the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu group, looks certain to emerge as the biggest bloc in the 120-seat parliament, but a late surge by the opposition could complicate efforts to forge a coalition.

By 6 p.m. (1600 GMT), six hours before polls close, the Israeli election committee said turnout was 55.5 percent, up from 50.3 percent at the same time in 2009 and the highest level since 1999, when Netanyahu, serving his first term as prime minister, was defeated by then-Labour Party leader Ehud Barak.

A stream of opinion polls before the election had predicted an easy win for Netanyahu, who has said tackling Iran's nuclear ambitions would be his top priority if he won, shunting Palestinian peacemaking well down the agenda.

The final opinion polls on Friday showed his Likud-Beitenu group still on top, but losing some ground to the Jewish Home party, which opposes a Palestinian state and advocates annexing chunks of the occupied West Bank.

In a sign of concern over a possible last-minute burst from centrist parties, Netanyahu called on party faithful to vote.

"Go vote, and then go back to the cafes. Go vote so we can lead Israel because ... we don't really know how all of this is going to end," he said at his party headquarters in Israel's commercial capital, Tel Aviv.

INTERNATIONAL CONCERN

Political sources said earlier that Netanyahu might approach center-left parties after the ballot in an effort to broaden his coalition and present a more moderate face to worried allies.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned Israel on Tuesday it was losing international support, saying prospects for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were almost dead because of expanding Jewish settlements.

U.S.-brokered peace talks broke down in 2010 amid mutual acrimony. Since then Israel has accelerated construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem - land the Palestinians want for their future state - much to the anger of Western partners.

Some 5.66 million Israelis are eligible to vote. Polling stations close at 10 p.m. (2000 GMT). Full results were due by Wednesday morning. Coalition talks could take several weeks.

Basking in warm winter sunshine, Israelis flocked to the polls throughout the day, although few seemed to believe that they could dent Netanyahu's seemingly impregnable poll lead.

"There is a king sitting on the throne in Israel and I wanted to dethrone him, but it looks like that won't happen," said retired teacher Yehudit Shimshi voting in central Israel.

No Israeli party has ever secured an absolute majority, meaning Netanyahu would always need coalition allies.

The former commando has traditionally looked to religious, conservative parties for backing and is widely expected to seek out the surprise star of the campaign, self-made millionaire Naftali Bennett, who heads the Jewish Home party.

A one-time political aide to Netanyahu and a former settler leader, Bennett's youthful dynamism has struck a chord amongst Israelis, disillusioned after years of failed peace initiatives.

TURBULENCE

Surveys suggest Bennett may take up to 14 seats, many at the expense of Likud-Beitenu, which was projected to win 32 in the last round of opinion polls published on Friday - 10 less than the two parties won in 2009 when they ran separate lists.

On the center-left, the main opposition group, Labour, was seen taking 17 seats, although party leader Shelly Yachimovich clearly believed that the number might go higher.

"Incredible voter turnout percentages. The government can be changed!" she tweeted on Tuesday.

Tuesday's vote is the first in Israel since Arab uprisings swept the region two years ago, reshaping the Middle East.

Netanyahu has said the turbulence, which has brought Islamist governments to power in several countries long ruled by secularist autocrats, including neighboring Egypt, shows the importance of strengthening national security.

If he wins on Tuesday, he will seek to put concerns about Iran swiftly back into focus. Netanyahu has said he will not let Tehran enrich enough uranium to make a single nuclear bomb - a threshold Israeli experts say could arrive as early as mid-2013.

Iran denies it is planning to build the bomb, and says Israel, widely believed to have the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, is the biggest threat to the region.

The issue has barely registered during the election campaign, with a poll in Haaretz newspaper on Friday saying 47 percent of Israelis thought social and economic issues were the most pressing concern, against just 10 percent who cited Iran.

One of the first problems to face the next government, which is unlikely to take power before the middle of next month at the earliest, is the stuttering economy.

Data last week showed the budget deficit rose to 4.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2012, double the original estimate, meaning spending cuts and tax hikes look certain.

(Additional reporting by Ori Lewis, Jeffrey Heller and Tova Cohen; Editing by Alistair Lyon)

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SGX's Q2 net profit rises 17% to S$76m

SINGAPORE : Rising interest in derivatives trading helped lift earnings for the Singapore Exchange (SGX) last quarter.

Asia's second-largest bourse operator reported a 17 per cent on-year rise in second-quarter net profit to S$76 million.

It also attracted a large number of new bond listings in the same quarter.

Derivatives trading has been the star performer in SGX.

Over the October to December quarter, derivatives daily average volume on SGX hit a record of 358,532 contracts, up 30 per cent on-year.

This was supported by rising trading interests in China A50 futures and Japan Nikkei 225 options.

Not to be undone, the securities market performed well too.

Its daily average volume rose 8 per cent for the quarter to hit a trading value of S$1.2 billion.

This translates to a revenue of S$58 million for the securities business segment.

SGX said the better performance was due to improvements in investor sentiment following stability over the Europe debt situation and improved US economy.

Magnus Bocker, chief executive officer of Singapore Exchange, said: "We should remember the enormous amount of liquidity in the market. Not so much in the equity market, but actually more in the fixed income and currency markets, and with chasing yields and lot of very successful and growing companies, I think we can all expect this sentiment to continue. I think we can expect more flows into securities."

Some analysts are bullish on SGX's prospects going forward.

The said the improved investment climate globally may benefit the exchange operator.

Ken Ang, investment analyst at Phillip Securities Research, said: "SGX is very well placed to benefit from this increasing attractiveness of the equity market and therefore resulting in increase in trading value."

SGX attracted eight new listings in its second quarter - raising S$798.9 million.

While the number seems small, it came amid declines in the global initial public offering (IPO) market.

In 2012, global IPO volumes fell 27 per cent, with the lowest level of funds raised since 2009.

Kenneth Ng, head of Singapore research at CIMB Research, said: "I think while that (derivative) is great and that diversified the revenue of SGX, SGX still has a rather pertinent problem of trying to increase the security turnover velocity and value by retail initiatives, attracting listings and so forth."

Apart from seeking more IPOs, SGX also attracted some 90 new bond listings, raising S$39.7 billion for the quarter.

- CNA/ms

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Giottos: Honey, I shrunk the tripod

Good news for shutterbug travelers with limited luggage space: Popular tripod maker Giottos has just released a new range of "YTL" tripods that utilize a new Y-shaped center column design that's 30 percent smaller than the cylindrical columns found in typical tripods. This allows the tripod legs to be tucked into the center column closer, making the tripod more compact and allowing it to be easily stowed.

While the center column sees a reduction in size, the company claims the new design does not compromise the tripod's stability and strength. The new tripod range can support cameras from 11 pounds to 22 pounds.

The "YTL" range will come in three- or four-section variants and feature a two- or three-way center column. Prices will range from $160 to $350 depending on whether you choose the aluminum or the lighter carbon fiber version. Giottos tripods are available from select online stores in the U.K.

(Source: Crave Asia via DPreview)

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