The United States will resume some military sales to Bahrain, a key Gulf ally facing Iran, despite human rights concerns linked to months of popular protests against the island kingdom’s rulers, the State Department said on Friday.

The Obama administration notified Congress that certain sales would be allowed for Bahrain’s defense force, coast guard and national guard, although it would maintain a hold on TOW missiles, Humvees and some other items for now, the department said in a statement.

“We have made the decision to release additional items to Bahrain mindful of the fact that there are a number of serious unresolved human rights issues that the government of Bahrain needs to address,” the statement said.

The State Department did not give a total value for the items being released but emphasized that the equipment being approved was “not used for crowd control” as the majority Shi’ite community continues to protest against the Sunni royal family following a crackdown last year.

U.S. officials said among the sales now allowed to go forward would be harbor security vessels and upgrades to turbo-fan engines used in F-16 fighter aircraft as well as legislation which could pave the way for a future sale of a naval frigate.

Items still on hold, besides the missiles and the Humvees, include teargas, teargas launchers and stun grenades.

DECISION CRITICIZED IN CONGRESS

The decision was criticized by Senator Patrick Leahy, who wrote a provision Congress passed last year requiring the administration to consult lawmakers before allowing sales of teargas and other crowd-control items to governments of countries undergoing democratic transition in the Middle East.

“While I am pleased that the administration is continuing to withhold tear gas, small arms and other crowd-control items from the Bahraini security forces, this arms sale sends the wrong message,” Leahy, a Democrat, said in a statement.

“The government of Bahrain has yet to respect the Bahraini people’s legitimate demands, or to hold accountable its own police and military officers for arresting, torturing and killing Bahraini protesters,” Leahy said.

The resumption of military sales follows a visit to Washington this week by Bahrain Crown Prince Salman Hamid al-Khalifa, who met Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

“The Vice President expressed concern about the recent escalation of street violence, including attacks against security forces,” the White House said. Biden also pressed on the importance of safeguarding human rights and of government accountability for past abuses, messages that were reinforced by Panetta, the Pentagon said.

In October, the Obama administration delayed $53 million in planned sales to Bahrain pending the outcome of a local investigation into alleged human rights abuses since an uprising began in February 2011.

Bahrain has been the host of U.S. naval headquarters in the Gulf for more than 60 years and is seen as a central bulwark for U.S. efforts to deter Iran.

Human rights advocates have criticized Washington for its muted response Bahrain’s crackdown contrasted with strong U.S. public support for popular protests in Egypt, Tunisia and Syria.

The State Department said Bahrain’s government had taken steps to implement reforms but that “the country is becoming increasingly polarized and much work remains to be done.”

“We are concerned about excessive use of force and tear gas by police. At the same time, we are concerned by the almost daily use of violence by some protesters,” the statement said, urging both sides to refrain from incitement.

The Obama administration has been under pressure to stick by Bahrain’s ruling family, notably from Sunni-led Saudi Arabia and other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, in the face of protests by the country’s Shi’ites.

The original $53 million sale proposal included 44 Humvee armored vehicles and several hundred TOW missiles along with associated equipment. Prime contractors would be privately held AM General and Raytheon Co.

Source: Independent

At least 300 garment factories were shut for a day after workers flew into a rage and clashed with police in Ashulia on Saturday, injuring over 100 people including 10 law enforcers.

Meanwhile, Nahar Begum, 30, an operative of Opex Group, was run over by a bus at Jamgara when the agitating RMG workers were chased by police during the clash, said Mokhlesur Rahman, inspector of Industrial Police, Ashulia.

The clash suspended transport movement on the Dhaka-Tangail highway for three and a half hours since the workers took to the streets around 10:00am after a rumour spread that an official of Hamim Group beat to death a worker on Thursday.

Police had to fire teargas shells and rubber bullets to bring the situation under control.

Witnesses and police said hundreds of workers of Hamim Group started an agitation inside the factory at Narasinghapur around 9:00am bringing allegation that an official beat Salman, a store keeper, to death and concealed his body.

According to the police, Salman locked into an altercation with Mofakkharul Islam, director of Hamim Group, Thursday evening when he asked Salman not to use cell phone during working hours.

At one stage, the director beat up Salman and handed him over to the police, they said. Ashulia police confirmed that he was sent in jail on Saturday.

As the workers found him absent Saturday morning, the rumour spread that he died of the torture by the official, police said.

Later, the workers took to the streets and called the other factory workers to join them.

Thousands of workers attacked the law enforcers as they charged batons on the RMG workers to resist them, triggering the clash that left more than 100 people injured.

Rafiqul Islam Sheikh, additional superintendent of police of Dhaka district, told The Daily Star that police brought the situation under control around 1:30pm.

Among the injured, one was hit by a rubber bullet fired by police, witnesses said.

Inspector Mokhlesur Rahman claimed that there are 10 policemen among the injured.

Contacted, Faizul Kabir, deputy director of Industrial Police, admitted that police fired teargas shells and rubber bullets to quell the agitating workers but he could not say anything about the casualty.

He also confirmed that the authorities of at least 300 factories declared their organisations closed for today (Saturday) fearing further violence.

The injured were admitted to Enam Medical College and Hospital and other local hospitals.

Source: Daily Star

The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that a device that can be used as a “sonic weapon” will be deployed in London during the Olympics.

The American-built long-range acoustic device (LRAD), which has been used by the US army to control crowds in Iraq, can emit an ear-piercing beam of sound.

An MoD spokesman said the device, which can also be used as a loudspeaker, was among a “broad range of assets” being used by the armed forces to provide security during the Games.

He said it would be used primarily in loud hailer mode to issue verbal warnings to any boats on the river Thames that were causing concern.

But some versions of the device, which was used this week during Exercise Olympic Guardian, are capable of producing deafening sound levels of 150 decibels at one metre.

“As part of the military contribution to the police-led security effort to ensure a safe and secure games, a broad range of assets and equipment is being used by our armed forces,” the MoD spokesman added.

“This includes the LRAD which will be deployed during the Olympic Gamesprimarily to be used in the loud hailer mode as part of the measures to achieve a maritime stop on the Thames.”

Source: Guardian

A World War II RAF fighter, which crash-landed in a remote part of the Egyptian desert in 1942, has been discovered almost intact.

There was no trace of the pilot, Flt Sgt Dennis Copping, but the British embassy says it is planning to mount a search for his remains.

The RAF Museum in Hendon, north London, says it is hoping to recover the plane as soon as possible.

There are fears souvenir hunters will start stripping it.

The 24-year-old pilot, the son of a dentist from Southend in Essex, went missing over the Western Desert in June 1942, flying an American-made P40 Kittyhawk single-engine fighter.

Two-and-a-half months ago an aircraft believed to be his was discovered near a remote place called Wadi al-Jadid by a Polish oil worker, Jakub Perka.

His photographs show the plane is in remarkably good condition, though the engine and propeller have separated from the fuselage.

The original paintwork and RAF insignia are said to be clearly visible, almost perfectly preserved in the dry desert air.

But of the pilot there is no sign. He appears to have executed a near-perfect emergency landing, perhaps after becoming lost and running out of fuel, and to have survived the crash.

He rigged a parachute as an awning and removed the aircraft’s radio and batteries but then apparently walked off into the desert in search of help.

Bleak prospects

Almost 100 miles from the nearest settlement, he stood virtually no chance.

David Keen, an aviation historian at the RAF Museum, says the pilot broke the first rule of survival in the desert, which is to stay with your plane or vehicle.

But the very same conditions which made the pilot’s prospects so bleak have helped preserve the plane.

Mr Keen says of the many thousands of aircraft which were shot down or crashed during the Second World War, very few survive in anything like this condition.

He said: “Nearly all the crashes in the Second World War, and there were tens of thousands of them, resulted on impact with the aircraft breaking up, so the only bits that are recovered are fragments, often scattered over a wide area.

“What makes this particular aircraft so special is that it looks complete, and it survived on the surface of the desert all these years. It’s like a timewarp.”

The RAF Museum has a P40 Kittyhawk on display, but it has been put together from parts of many different aircraft.

Recovering Flt Sgt Copping’s plane will not be easy.

Souvenir hunters

It is in a part of the desert which is not only remote but also dangerous, because it is close to a smuggling route between Libya and Egypt.

The defence attache at the British Embassy in Cairo, Paul Collins, says he is hoping to travel to the area in the near future, but is waiting for permission from the Egyptian army.

He told the BBC: “I have to go down there. This is a serviceman who was killed, albeit 70 years ago. We have a responsibility to go and find out whether it’s his plane, though not necessarily to work out what happened.

“He went missing in action. We can only assume he got out and walked somewhere, so we have to do a search of the area for any remains, although it could be a wide area.

“But we have to go soon as all the souvenir hunters will be down there,” said Mr Collins.

He said the British authorities are trying to find out whether Flt Sgt Copping has any surviving close relatives, because if his remains are found a decision will need to be made about what to do with them.

Source: BBC

Detailed leaks of operational information about the foiled underwear bomb plot are causing growing anger in the US intelligence community, with former agents blaming the Obama administration for undermining national security and compromising the British services, MI6 and MI5.

The Guardian has learned from Saudi sources that the agent was not a Saudi national as was widely reported, but a Yemeni. He was born in Saudi Arabia, in the port city of Jeddah, and then studied and worked in the UK, where he acquired a British passport.

Mike Scheur, the former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden unit, said the leaking about the nuts and bolts of British involvement was despicable and would make a repeat of the operation difficult. “MI6 should be as angry as hell. This is something that the prime minister should raise with the president, if he has the balls. This is really tragic,” Scheur said.

He added: “Any information disclosed is too much information. This does seem to be a tawdry political thing.”

He noted that the leak came on the heels of a series of disclosures over the last 10 days, beginning with a report that the CIA wanted to expand its drone attacks in Yemen, Barack Obama making a surprise trip to Afghanistan around the time of the Bin Laden anniversary and “then this inexplicable leak”.

Robert Grenier, former head of the CIA counter-terrorism centre, said: “As for British Intelligence, I suppose, but do not know, that they must be very unhappy. They are often exasperated, quite reasonably, with their American friends, who are far more leak-prone than they.

“In their place, I would think two and three times before sharing with the Americans, and then only do it if I had to. The problem with that dynamic is that you don’t know what you don’t know, and what opportunities you might be missing when you decide not to share. The Americans are doing a very good job of undermining trust, and the problem starts at the top.”

The name of the British passport-holder has not yet been released but may come out through al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. He is reported to have spent time at at language school in Sana’a, the Yemeni capital, and been recruited by al-Qaida as a suicide bomber.

Mustafa Alani of the Gulf Research Centre in Dubai told CNN that the bomber had been recruited by the Saudis to penetrate al-Qaida about a year ago, in part because the group would be attracted by the fact that his UK passport meant he could travel to the US without a visa.

“Apparently he was able to convince al-Qaida that he is genuinely ready to carry out the mission,” said Alani, who CNN said had been briefed by Saudi counter-terrorism officials. Alani said his understanding was that al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (Aqap) intended the would-be suicide bomber to fly through a Gulf country to connect to a US-bound flight.

The Saudi operation culminated with the agent and another Saudi informant – likely his handler – being whisked out of Yemen, Alani said. “My information is that he was pulled out after the device was handed to him, and they ordered the green light to carry out the operation,” he told the US network.

Yemen has been a key target country for the CIA and MI6 in line with the growing strength of Aqap in recent years. But the lead on the ground has been taken by the Saudi intelligence service, the Mabahith, which is best placed to operate in the local environment and exploit links on either side of the border.

Both the US and British intelligence communities are known to work closely with their Saudi counterparts and both have liaison officers permanently stationed in Riyadh and Sana’a.

Aqap moved its operations to Yemen in 2007 after the defeat of al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia. The Nigerian “underwear bomber”, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit in 2009, was radicalised in Yemen while claiming to be there as a student.

The US, Britain and the Saudis are likely to have preferred their own intelligence operation to co-operation with the Yemeni security authorities, who are anxious to avoid being seen as a western pawn.

Cables released by WikiLeaks exposed the scale of US covert involvement in the Arab world’s poorest country. In 2009 the Saudi deputy interior minister, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, told General James Jones, President Obama’s national security adviser: “The Saudis have been monitoring conversations of al-Qaida operatives in Yemen very closely and whereas before the [recent] attack they were hearing relaxed 20-minute phone conversations over cellphones, after the attack the phones went virtually silent. This suggests that at least for now these operatives are more focused on their own security rather than on planning operations.”

Bin Nayef’s support for operations against Aqap is unsurprising. He survived an assassination attempt in Jeddah in September 2009 when a Saudi Aqap operative named Abdullah al-Asiri feigned repentance for his jihadi views in a meeting with the prince then blew himself up with a bomb concealed in his anus. Al-Asiri’s brother Ibrahim is Aqap’s chief bombmaker.

Gregory Johnsen, a US expert on Aqap, pondered on his blog whether the group would now reveal the identity of the undercover agent. “Undoubtedly, Aqap recorded a marytrdom video of the undercover agent before giving him the bomb,” Johnsen wrote. “The US and Saudis won’t divulge his identity for obvious reasons, but will Aqap?”

Source: Guardian

Chilean officials are asking fishermen to help save birds caught in nets after thousands of dead fowl appeared along coastal Chile this week.

At least 2,300 dead birds were found along beaches between Cartagena and Playa de Santo Domingo, Chile, said Jose Luis Britos, and environment professor and director of the Museum of Natural History of San Antonio, Chile.

Many of the birds, which come from several species, had broken wings and bruising on the outside of their bodies — injuries consistent with getting trapped in fishing nets, Britos said.

He said bird deaths from fishing nets occur every year, but never at this level. In a typical year, about 15 to 20 dead birds are found, Britos said.

One hypothesis for the increase this year involves climate. As Chilean weather gets colder this time of year, migrating birds that would normally travel north for warmth are instead lingering to feast on an influx of anchovies and sardines that had fled the coast of Peru in search of cooler waters.

Earlier this week, Peruvian authorities say warm waters off that country’s coast are to blame for the deaths of more than 5,000 marine birds.

The Peruvian National Center for the Study of El Nino said that since February, the Peruvian coast has had an abundance of warm water as a result of marine currents throughout the world’s oceans. The warm water has altered the marine ecosystem, it said.

The warm water has led fish such as anchovies and other species that live in surface waters to migrate to deeper water toward the south. As a result, pelicans and other birds that feed from the surface of the water died of starvation.

“If these oceanographic conditions persist, it is likely that its impact will spread to other areas of the (Peruvian) coast even during the fall, which could make the numbers increase and affect other marine species,” the report stated.

The Peruvian ministry of environment said seafood is still safe to eat, and encouraged everyone to continue to support local fishermen, according to state-run Andina news agency.

Officials in Peru continue to search for the cause of death of almost 900 dolphins since the beginning of the year. The health ministry is awaiting final results from molecular analysis looking for the morbillivirus, which previously has been linked to dolphin deaths.

The Chilean agriculture and livestock ministry and staff from Britos’ center have called for a meeting with fishermen for Monday. They are asking fishermen to try to save trapped birds before closing their nets.

Britos said he worries that until Monday, the number of dead birds could rise significantly.

Source: cnn

Greek politicians abandoned their quest to form a government on Saturday, leaving the president with one final opportunity to avert new elections that could drive the debt-choked country out of the European single currency.

Greece’s political landscape is in disarray after voters humiliated the only parties backing a rescue plan tied to spending cuts, leaving no bloc with sufficient seats to form a government to secure the next tranche of financial aid.

Without aid from the EU and IMF, the country risks bankruptcy in weeks and – as European leaders now openly acknowledge – potential ejection from the euro zone.

On Saturday morning, Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos met President Karolos Papoulias in the presidential mansion to formally confirm he had been unable to persuade other parties to form a broad coalition that would keep the bailout agreement but try to improve its terms.

The holdout was Alexis Tsipras, a charismatic 37-year-old radical leftist, who has emerged as the standard bearer for opponents of the bailout’s harsh austerity measures and has the most to gain from a new election.

Papoulias has one last chance to press all political leaders to form a coalition. If he fails, he must call a new election in June. In televised remarks during their meeting, Venizelos urged the president to lean on Tsipras to join an “ecumenical government”.

“I put this forth to Mr Tsipras. I haven’t received a positive response,” Venizelos said. “I believe that is where your efforts should be focused during the consultations.”

The president replied: “There are signs of optimism in what you are telling me and I hope I can contribute to the formation of a government – because things are rather difficult.”

Papoulias will meet the leaders of the country’s three biggest parties on Sunday at 0900 GMT, his office said in a statement. He will then hold individual meetings with the leaders of the smaller parties.

The lurch towards a new election has caused havoc in financial markets, both in Greece and across Europe, where the prospect of Athens leaving the euro is viewed as a risk for bank balance sheets and the credit ratings of other vulnerable countries, although the EU is better prepared than it was a few months ago.

On Friday, as politicians acknowledged their failure to agree a coalition, the euro sank to its lowest point since January near $1.29.

Opinion polls conducted in the week since the election show Tsipras’s SYRIZA coalition surging into first place – a prize that would give it an automatic bonus of 50 extra seats in the 300 seat house at the expense of the conservatives.

Tsipras says the bailout deal must be torn up, though like most Greeks he says he wants to keep the euro, a position seen in Brussels as untenable without the bailout.

“SEXY ALEXI”

Last Sunday’s election saw voters punish the two parties that dominated the country for generations – Venizelos’s PASOK and the conservative New Democracy party of Antonis Samaras.

The two, which usually account for around 80 percent of votes, saw their combined tally collapse to just 32 percent. The rest of the votes were cast for small parties that oppose the bailout, ranging from the Communists to the far right.

Polls conducted since then show the anti-bailout vote consolidating around Tsipras, whose good looks and self confident manner have helped make him a hero for young people.

Venizelos and Samaras say that without their bailout deal Greece would be headed for certain ejection from the euro and bankruptcy. If a second election does take place, they will be hoping that frightened voters return to the traditional parties.

But the momentum is clearly behind Tsipras, who has tapped into generational rage in a country where more than half of young people are unemployed and blame the narrow interests of the middle aged political class for squandering their future.

A cartoon on the front page of the Ta Nea newspaper showed the boyish Tsipras riding off with the ballot box on a toy horse. One of his supporters’ slogans on the internet rhymes: “Come on Alexi – for a Greece that’s sexy!”

A poll by Metron Analysis for the Epenenditis weekly published on Saturday showed SYRIZA would take 25.5 percent of votes – almost 9 points higher than its Sunday result. A poll earlier this week gave SYRIZA 27.7 percent. Such results would put it way ahead of New Democracy and PASOK.

The European Union/International Monetary Fund bailout requires Greece to cut wages, raise taxes, fire state employees, sell off state assets and reform labor laws. EU leaders say it is needed if Athens is ever to become solvent.

But opponents say the harsh medicine is self-defeating, making it impossible for Greece to grow its economy and emerge from the depths of the euro zone’s worst recession, which has ground on relentlessly for five years.

SYRIZA argues that Greece can abandon the bailout and that European leaders will not carry out their threats to withhold funding, because they cannot risk the damage to other EU countries that would be caused by a Greek collapse.

“They will be begging us to take the money,” SYRIZA deputy Dimitris Stratoulis said on Friday.

But European leaders say the next tranche of loans due in late June is in jeopardy if Greece does not emerge with a government committed to the bailout. In a second election, voters would face a stark choice, said Chris Williamson, chief economist at London-based research firm Markit.

“I think it is going to be increasingly presented as a vote to effectively leave the euro. That’s how it will be seen outside of Greece and the rhetoric will build up to ensure that voters are aware of the implications.”

Source: Reuters

Syrian Prime Minister Adel Safar visited the site of dual suicide bombings that killed dozens and wounded hundreds in the country’s capital, state-run media reported Saturday.

The attacks were aimed “at striking Syria’s will and its people in life, security and stability,” Safar said, according to the official Syrian Arab News Agency.

The attacks, which took place Thursday, killed at least 55 people in Damascus. The government has blamed “terrorists,” while members of the Syrian opposition have blamed the government.

The Local Coordination Committees of Syria, an opposition network, reported at least four deaths Saturday. The dead include one person killed by regime sniper fire in Hama and one man who died from gunshot wounds sustained Friday after regime forces stormed his Deir Ezzor home, the group said.

Late Friday, a powerful explosion rocked Syria’s most populous city of Aleppo, killing a guard at an office of President Bashar al-Assad’s ruling Baath Party, opposition groups reported.

The cause of the blast was not immediately known. Heavy gunfire was heard in its aftermath, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

At least 20 people, including the Aleppo security guard, were killed across Syria on Friday, the observatory said.

Damascus and Aleppo have been the scene of a flurry of attacks in recent months. Aleppo, a commercial center and long a bastion of support for al-Assad, had been largely spared in Syria’s 14 months of bloody uprising. But recent protests and violence there could signal a significant shift.

On Thursday, suicide attackers killed at least 55 people in the capital of Damascus,

Syria’s foreign ministry underscored the urban violence in identical letters to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and U.N. Security Council President Agshin Mehdiyev, who is the Azerbaijani ambassador to the United Nations.

The letters said that Damascus, Aleppo and other Syrian cities “witnessed several terrorist bombings over the last weeks” that left dozens of innocent people dead, SANA reported.

Syria blames “terrorists” for the attacks, a term it uses to describe the opposition and to rationalize security forces’ crackdown.

Some analysts said the attacks raise concerns about the presence of jihadist elements in Syria, noting Thursday’s Damascus strikes resemble suicide car bombings during the sectarian violence in Iraq in the past decade.

But opposition groups have said the regime is responsible for the violence that erupted after government forces began a crackdown on peaceful protests in March 2011. That fierce clampdown spurred a grassroots uprising against the regime.

The opposition Syrian National Council said al-Assad’s regime staged Thursday’s deadly suicide bombings in Damascus “to spur chaos, disrupt the work of the international observers and divert attention away from other crimes being committed by its forces elsewhere.”

“In orchestrating such acts,” the council said Friday, “the regime seeks to prove its claims of the existence of ‘armed terrorist gangs’ in the country that are hindering its so-called ‘efforts of political reform.’”

The deadly blasts in Damascus took place near a military intelligence center.

But the council questioned how the attackers could have made it past security to conduct the bombings.

“The security branch is heavily guarded and surrounded with cement barriers at a distance from the exterior fence. It would be reckless to carry out such an attack, because it would in no way impact the security building,” the group said.

Reports of incessant violence cast doubt on the effectiveness of a U.N.-backed peace plan that had been agreed upon.

Since a cease-fire was supposed to go into effect on April 12, more than 1,000 people have died, according to the LCC.

CNN cannot independently verify reports of deaths and violence because the Syrian government has severely restricted access to international media.

A team of U.N. monitors are on the ground to observe the progress of the cease-fire and encourage the implimentation of the peace plan.

At least 145 observers and 56 civilian staff were in Syria as of Friday, a U.N. spokesman said. About 300 observers are expected within weeks.

President Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage is energizing Christian conservative support for Mitt Romney in a way that the likely GOP nominee has so far not been able to do on his own, according to religious leaders and activists.

Pastors in Ohio, North Carolina, Florida and other swing states are readying Sunday sermons inveighing against same-sex unions, while activist groups have begun laying plans for social media campaigns, leaflet drives and other get-out-the-vote efforts centered on the same-sex marriage issue. Romney could benefit from a strong turnout among evangelicals and other social conservatives, many of whom remain skeptical of his commitment to their causes.

Facebook has launched its own app store to promote mobile programs that operate using the social network.

The company said the App Center will become the “new, central place to find great apps like Draw Something” and other titles.

Developers will have the ability to charge a fee for apps sold in the store in the near future, Facebook said.

The announcement came as Facebook admitted growth in mobile use could hurt future advertising revenue.

Ahead of its initial public offering, Facebook told potential investors in a statement: “If users increasingly access Facebook mobile products as a substitute for access through personal computers, and if we are unable to successfully implement monetisation strategies for our mobile users, or if we incur excessive expenses in this effort, our financial performance and ability to grow revenue would be negatively affected.”

‘Start preparing’

The App Center is expected to be rolled out globally in “the coming weeks”, said Facebook’s Aaron Brady in a post on the network’s developer blog.

“All developers should start preparing today to make sure their app is included for the launch,” he wrote.

However, Mr Brady said the store was not designed to compete head-on with the likes of Apple’s App Store and Google Play.

“The App Center is designed to grow mobile apps that use Facebook – whether they’re on iOS, Android or the mobile web,” he wrote.

“From the mobile App Center, users can browse apps that are compatible with their device, and if a mobile app requires installation, they will be sent to download the app from the App Store or Google Play.”

The store will follow the well-oiled app browsing format – and will be available on mobile

Only apps which make use of Facebook’s log-in system Connect are eligible to be included in the store.

‘Attract more ideas’

Saverio Romeo, an industry analyst from Frost & Sullivan, said the store announcement suggested an aggressive push by Facebook to become a bigger player in mobile.

He said Facebook needed to become “more significant, to attract more ideas and get more experience in the mobile space”.

“I think the store is an important element – a community of developers is a fundamental element in the growth we have seen with Apple and Android,” he told the BBC.

He also said he believed Facebook could position itself as the first major app store to be platform-agnostic – that is, not tied to a single platform such as iOS or Android.

“The type of applications that the Facebook community can develop can have an incredible open horizon.

“Facebook is ubiquitous – it does not have any preferential routes. The question is the monetisation of all this.”

Source:bbc