‘Liquipod’ takes smartphone waterproofing on the road

Amid a sea of Ultra-HD TVs, smart washing machines and various other gadgets, waterproofing expert Liquipel took to CES 2013 to make two announcements. The firm, which adds an interior and exterior waterproof nanocoating to cell phones, revealed a new and improved waterproofing material that is even more effective than its first-generation solution. Liquipel also unveiled its new “Liquipod,” a portable machine that can waterproof gadgets anywhere in the world while device owners wait, according to TechCrunch. Previously, Liquipel required customers to ship their handsets to the company’s offices for treatment.

[More from BGR: iPhone 5 now available with unlimited service, no contract on Walmart’s $ 45 Straight Talk plan]

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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Sandra Bullock Honored at People's Choice Awards for New Orleans Support

By Alison Schwartz

01/09/2013 at 10:45 PM EST

Sandra Bullock at the Warren Easton Charter High School Health Clinic in New Orleans in August 2010

James Crump/Getty

Sandra Bullock took home big honors for her work in the Big Easy Wednesday night.

The People's Choice Awards crowned the Oscar-winning actress the favorite humanitarian for her career-spanning philanthropic efforts, including her dedication to New Orleans's Warren Easton Charter High School

"I'm not at all being modest when I say I'm not doing anything compared to what they do on a daily basis," Bullock, 48, told the crowd gathered at Los Angeles's Nokia Theatre.

Just six months after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, the actress showed her support by adopting the school, which sustained $4 million in damages during the storm. She donated hundreds of thousands of dollars for renovations, telling PEOPLE years later that she "felt such a profound need to do something for them."

Her generosity helped the charter school – the first public high school for boys in Louisiana – afford renovations, new band uniforms, athletic equipment and a new health clinic in a city that's close to her heart. After all, she adopted her son, Louis, from New Orleans in 2010 and also has a home in the Garden District.

She pointed to the tireless dedication of the school's students, teachers and tough principal. "I've seen her," she joked. "Yeah, you don't want to go into that office."

Bullock then gave a shout-out to her son, who was sick as home, she said.

"[The students] compete, but they never cut each other down," she added. "And all that happens not because it's easy, but because they do not allow themselves any other option than to succeed."

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Retooling Pap test to spot more kinds of cancer

WASHINGTON (AP) — For years, doctors have lamented that there's no Pap test for deadly ovarian cancer. Wednesday, scientists reported encouraging signs that one day, there might be.

Researchers are trying to retool the Pap, a test for cervical cancer that millions of women get, so that it could spot early signs of other gynecologic cancers, too.

How? It turns out that cells can flake off of tumors in the ovaries or the lining of the uterus, and float down to rest in the cervix, where Pap tests are performed. These cells are too rare to recognize under the microscope. But researchers from Johns Hopkins University used some sophisticated DNA testing on the Pap samples to uncover the evidence — gene mutations that show cancer is present.

In a pilot study, they analyzed Pap smears from 46 women who already were diagnosed with either ovarian or endometrial cancer. The new technique found all the endometrial cancers and 41 percent of the ovarian tumors, the team reported Wednesday in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

This is very early-stage research, and women shouldn't expect any change in their routine Paps. It will take years of additional testing to prove if the so-called PapGene technique really could work as a screening tool, used to spot cancer in women who thought they were healthy.

"Now the hard work begins," said Hopkins oncologist Dr. Luis Diaz, whose team is collecting hundreds of additional Pap samples for more study and is exploring ways to enhance the detection of ovarian cancer.

But if it ultimately pans out, "the neat part about this is, the patient won't feel anything different," and the Pap wouldn't be performed differently, Diaz added. The extra work would come in a lab.

The gene-based technique marks a new approach toward cancer screening, and specialists are watching closely.

"This is very encouraging, and it shows great potential," said American Cancer Society genetics expert Michael Melner.

"We are a long way from being able to see any impact on our patients," cautioned Dr. Shannon Westin of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She reviewed the research in an accompanying editorial, and said the ovarian cancer detection would need improvement if the test is to work.

But she noted that ovarian cancer has poor survival rates because it's rarely caught early. "If this screening test could identify ovarian cancer at an early stage, there would be a profound impact on patient outcomes and mortality," Westin said.

More than 22,000 U.S. women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer each year, and more than 15,000 die. Symptoms such as pain and bloating seldom are obvious until the cancer is more advanced, and numerous attempts at screening tests have failed.

Endometrial cancer affects about 47,000 women a year, and kills about 8,000. There is no screening test for it either, but most women are diagnosed early because of postmenopausal bleeding.

The Hopkins research piggybacks on one of the most successful cancer screening tools, the Pap, and a newer technology used along with it. With a standard Pap, a little brush scrapes off cells from the cervix, which are stored in a vial to examine for signs of cervical cancer. Today, many women's Paps undergo an additional DNA-based test to see if they harbor the HPV virus, which can spur cervical cancer.

So the Hopkins team, funded largely by cancer advocacy groups, decided to look for DNA evidence of other gynecologic tumors. It developed a method to rapidly screen the Pap samples for those mutations using standard genetics equipment that Diaz said wouldn't add much to the cost of a Pap-plus-HPV test. He said the technique could detect both early-stage and more advanced tumors. Importantly, tests of Paps from 14 healthy women turned up no false alarms.

The endometrial cancers may have been easier to find because cells from those tumors don't have as far to travel as ovarian cancer cells, Diaz said. Researchers will study whether inserting the Pap brush deeper, testing during different times of the menstrual cycle, or other factors might improve detection of ovarian cancer.

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Wall Street rises after Alcoa reports earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks rose on Wednesday, rebounding from two days of losses, as investors turned their focus to the first prominent results of the earnings season.

Stocks had retreated at the start of the week from the S&P 500's highest point in five years, hit last Friday, on worries about possible earnings weakness.

Shares of Alcoa Inc were down 0.5 percent to $9.08 after early gains, following the company's earnings release after the bell on Tuesday. The largest U.S. aluminum producer said it expects global demand for aluminum to grow in 2013.

Herbalife Ltd stock rose 4.2 percent to $39.95 in its most active day of trading in the company's history after hedge fund manager Dan Loeb took a large stake in the nutritional supplements seller. Prominent short-seller Bill Ackman had previously accused the company of being a "pyramid scheme," which Herbalife has denied.

Traders have been cautious as the current quarter shaped up like the previous one, with companies recently lowering expectations, said James Dailey, portfolio manager of Team Asset Strategy Fund in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Lower expectations leave room for companies to surprise investors even if their results are not particularly strong.

"The big question and focus is on revenue, and Alcoa had better-than-expected revenue," which calmed the market a little, Dailey said.

Overall, corporate profits were expected to beat the previous quarter's meager 0.1 percent rise. Both earnings and revenues in the fourth quarter are expected to have grown by 1.9 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 61.66 points, or 0.46 percent, to 13,390.51. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> rose 3.87 points, or 0.27 percent, to 1,461.02. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> gained 14.00 points, or 0.45 percent, to 3,105.81.

Facebook Inc shares rose above $30 for the first time since July 2012, trading up 5.3 percent at $30.59. Facebook, which has been tight-lipped about its plans after its botched IPO in May, invited the media to its headquarters next week.

Clearwire Corp shares jumped 7.2 percent to $3.13 after Dish Network bid $2.28 billion for the company, beating out a previous Sprint offer and setting the stage for a takeover battle for the wireless service provider that owns crucial mobile spectrum.

Apollo Group Inc slid after heavier early losses, a day after it reported lower student sign-ups for the third straight quarter and cut its operating profit outlook for 2013. Apollo's shares were last off 7.8 percent at $19.32.

Volume was below the 2012 average of 6.42 billion shares traded per day, as 6.10 billion were traded on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE MKT and Nasdaq.

Advancing stocks outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by 2,014 to 963, while on the Nasdaq advancers beat decliners 1,603 to 859.

(Reporting by Gabriel Debenedetti; additional reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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Aid Groups Report Rising Misery Among Displaced Syrians

New signs of deprivation plaguing Syria’s war-ravaged civilians emerged on Tuesday, with the United Nations saying it is unable to feed a million hungry residents in combat zones and aid agencies reporting an outbreak of violence in a large refugee camp in Jordan, where a winter storm felled tents and left many frustrated inhabitants shivering in a cold rain.

Weather forecasters said another storm was threatening Syria and its neighbors with snow on Wednesday.

The World Food Program, the food agency of the United Nations, said that it was providing food to one and a half million people inside Syria this month but that as many as two and a half million needed help, mostly in areas made hazardous by fighting between insurgents and loyalist forces of President Bashar al-Assad.

“Our partners are overstretched, and there is no capacity to expand operations further,” said a World Food Program spokeswoman, Elizabeth Byrs, at the agency’s Geneva headquarters. “We need more implementing partners.”

She also said acute fuel shortages in Syria had delayed food deliveries and contributed to severe inflation in the price of bread because bakeries needed fuel for their ovens. In the contested city of Aleppo, for example, the price of a kilogram of bread is 250 Syrian pounds, or about $3.50, at least 50 percent higher than in other parts of Syria and at least six times more than its cost when the Syrian conflict began nearly two years ago.

The United Nations appealed last month for $1.5 billion in additional aid to handle the growing humanitarian crisis created by the Syrian conflict, which has left at least 60,000 people dead and is threatening to destabilize the Middle East. More than half a million Syrians have fled to neighboring countries, and the United Nations refugee agency has forecast a doubling of that number by the middle of 2013.

The most heavily burdened neighbors — Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon — have been persistently calling for more international aid, particularly during the cold winter months.

At the Zaatari refugee camp, which shelters 54,000 Syrians in northern Jordan, fighting erupted Tuesday during food distribution after a night of relentless rain inundated parts of the encampment. The number of injuries was unclear.

A statement by the Jordanian police said two aid workers had been hurt. Save the Children, one of the international groups that help the United Nations refugee agency administer the camp, said 11 people had been hurt, more than half of them Save the Children workers.

“The incident followed a night of heavy storms, during which torrential rains and high winds swept away tents and left parts of the camp flooded,” Save the Children said in a statement.

Mohammed Abu Asaker, a regional spokesman for the United Nations refugee agency, acknowledged weather-related problems at the camp, aggravated by a large number of new residents — roughly 9,000 arrivals in the past week.

“It is a difficult situation in the camp,” he said. “There is a frustration from the refugees.”

Ali Bibi, a liaison officer with the refugee agency, said the violence on Tuesday was the latest in a series of at least four clashes among refugees, aid workers and the police in recent weeks.

Melissa Fleming, the chief spokeswoman for the refugee agency in Geneva, said in an e-mail that most of the camp had withstood the rainfall and that aid workers were expediting efforts to move families into prefabricated housing. She attributed tensions among the camp population to “fears of worsening weather conditions, with some families rushing to occupy prefabs out of turn.”

One refugee, who described himself as a colonel in the Syrian Army before he defected, said that even though he was living in one of the prefabricated houses and covering himself with blankets, he could not stay warm.

“The tents are drenched. Kids are crying. Puddles of water are all over,” the refugee, who asked to be identified by only his first name, Mohamad, said in a telephone interview. “I am walking, my shoes are covered with rainwater. I can’t remember being so cold. I don’t even want to think about more than half of the camp living in tents. Something has to be done.”

In Syria on Tuesday, activists reported new violence in the Yarmouk district south of Damascus, a longtime Palestinian refugee encampment convulsed by fighting last month when insurgents temporarily seized control. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based opposition group with a network of contacts in Syria, reported an unspecified number of casualties in the area, as well as shelling by the Syrian military aimed at insurgent pockets in other Damascus suburbs.

In a speech on Sunday, Mr. Assad, whose family has dominated Syria’s politics for four decades, denounced those fomenting the armed uprising against him as foreign stooges, rejected negotiations and instead offered his own plan for political changes, which critics said was meant to keep him in power.

His speech was denounced by the opposition, its Arab and Western supporters, and the United Nations secretary general. On Tuesday, the prime minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a former friend of Mr. Assad’s who has since become a strident foe, added his voice to the criticism.

“It is unimaginable to consider suggestions of a person who has killed his people with bombs, planes and shelling as democratic,” Turkey’s semiofficial Anatolian News Agency quoted Mr. Erdogan as saying.

Rick Gladstone reported from New York, and Nick Cumming-Bruce from Geneva. Reporting was contributed by Jodi Rudoren from Jerusalem; Ranya Kadri from Amman, Jordan; Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon; and Sebnem Arsu from Istanbul.

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AP Exclusive: Richardson pressing NKorean test ban

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said Wednesday that his delegation is pressing North Korea to put a moratorium on missile launches and nuclear tests and to allow more cell phones and an open Internet for its citizens.

Richardson told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview in Pyongyang that the group is also asking for fair and humane treatment for an American citizen detained in North Korea.

“The citizens of the DPRK (North Korea) will be better off with more cell phones and an active Internet. Those are the three messages we’ve given to a variety of foreign policy officials, scientists” and government officials, Richardson said.

He is accompanied by Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and Google Ideas think tank Director Jared Cohen on what Richardson has called a private, humanitarian trip. Schmidt, who is the highest-profile U.S. business executive to visit North Korea since leader Kim Jong Un took power a year ago, has not spoken publicly about the reasons behind the journey to North Korea.

The high-profile visit comes just weeks after North Korea launched a long-range rocket to send a satellite into space. Washington has condemned the launch as a banned test of missile technology.

Schmidt, who oversaw Google‘s expansion into a global Internet giant, speaks frequently about the importance of providing people around the world with Internet access and technology. Google now has offices in more than 40 countries, including all three of North Korea’s neighbors: Russia, South Korea and China, another country criticized for systematic Internet censorship.

He and Cohen have collaborated on a book about the Internet’s role in shaping society called “The New Digital Age” that comes out in April.

Using science and technology to build North Korea’s beleaguered economy was the highlight of a New Year’s Day speech by leader Kim Jong Un.

New red banners promoting slogans drawn from Kim’s speech line Pyongyang’s snowy streets, and North Koreans are still cramming to study the lengthy speech. It was the first time in 19 years for North Koreans to hear their leader give a New Year’s Day speech. During the rule of late leader Kim Jong Il, state policy was distributed through North Korea’s three main newspapers.

___

Follow AP’s bureau chief for Pyongyang and Seoul at www.twitter.com/newsjean.

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Kangaroo Gets Loose at Melbourne Airport

People Pets

01/08/2013 at 08:00 PM EST

Travelers passing through Australia's Melbourne Airport on Monday may have been greeted by an unexpected baggage handler.

At around 7 a.m., a 3-year-old eastern gray kangaroo was spotted in the airport's parking garage, where it hopped around for almost two hours, giving security officers the slip in the process.

Wildlife officer Manfred Zabinskas was then called in to catch the young animal, who was tranquilized in order to be transported to safety. Analyzing the critter, Zabinskas noted he had been away from his natural habitat for some time, and that the romp through the parking garage had done some damage to his feet. Prior to being re-released into the wild, the kangaroo will be looked at by a veterinarian.

This is the second time a kangaroo has paid a visit to the Melbourne Airport. Last October, another marsupial made its way up to the fifth floor of the parking garage before being spotted.

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Report: Death rates from cancer still inching down

WASHINGTON (AP) — Death rates from cancer are continuing to inch down, researchers reported Monday.

Now the question is how to hold onto those gains, and do even better, even as the population gets older and fatter, both risks for developing cancer.

"There has been clear progress," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, which compiled the annual cancer report with government and cancer advocacy groups.

But bad diets, lack of physical activity and obesity together wield "incredible forces against this decline in mortality," Brawley said. He warned that over the next decade, that trio could surpass tobacco as the leading cause of cancer in the U.S.

Overall, deaths from cancer began slowly dropping in the 1990s, and Monday's report shows the trend holding. Among men, cancer death rates dropped by 1.8 percent a year between 2000 and 2009, and by 1.4 percent a year among women. The drops are thanks mostly to gains against some of the leading types — lung, colorectal, breast and prostate cancers — because of treatment advances and better screening.

The news isn't all good. Deaths still are rising for certain cancer types including liver, pancreatic and, among men, melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer.

Preventing cancer is better than treating it, but when it comes to new cases of cancer, the picture is more complicated.

Cancer incidence is dropping slightly among men, by just over half a percent a year, said the report published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Prostate, lung and colorectal cancers all saw declines.

But for women, earlier drops have leveled off, the report found. That may be due in part to breast cancer. There were decreases in new breast cancer cases about a decade ago, as many women quit using hormone therapy after menopause. Since then, overall breast cancer incidence has plateaued, and rates have increased among black women.

Another problem area: Oral and anal cancers caused by HPV, the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, are on the rise among both genders. HPV is better known for causing cervical cancer, and a protective vaccine is available. Government figures show just 32 percent of teen girls have received all three doses, fewer than in Canada, Britain and Australia. The vaccine was recommended for U.S. boys about a year ago.

Among children, overall cancer death rates are dropping by 1.8 percent a year, but incidence is continuing to increase by just over half a percent a year. Brawley said it's not clear why.

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Asian shares rise as earnings eyed

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares rose on Wednesday after rounds of profit taking from a sharp rally at the start of the new year subsided, while investors waited warily for corporate earnings season to kick off in full force.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> rose 0.4 percent, with Australian shares <.axjo> among the outperformers with a 0.4 percent gain to break a three-day losing streak. Hong Kong shares <.hsi> also climbed 0.4 percent.

South Korean shares <.ks11> were virtually flat. Shares in tech heavyweight Samsung Electronics Co Ltd were also flat despite announcing on Tuesday a better-than-expected estimated fourth-quarter operating profit.

"The main (Seoul) index is trading nearly flat after falling steadily since last week's rapid gains, due to concerns about lackluster fourth-quarter earnings outlooks," said Park Jung-sup, an analyst at Daishin Securities.

He said overall market outlooks for fourth-quarter corporate results have been revised down considerably, but worries for earnings shocks remain.

Global shares fell and bond prices rose on Tuesday, with investors cautious ahead of a U.S. earnings season expected to show sluggish growth in quarterly corporate profits.

The U.S. earnings season began on Tuesday with Alcoa Inc , the largest aluminum producer in the U.S., with customers in a wide range of industries, reporting a fourth-quarter profit of $242 million, in line with expectations.

U.S. corporate profits are expected to be higher than the third quarter's lackluster results, but analysts' estimates are down sharply from where they were in October.

Credit Suisse said in a research note that Asian equity market price indices may start to catch up with earnings estimates which had been outperforming market prices, suggesting further upside scope for Asian share prices.

The consensus earnings forecast so far is flat in January, following virtually flat revisions in December, it said.

"It was the persistent EPS downgrades that led to the gap between equity market price indices and EPS. These flat revisions could act as a catalyst for equity market price indices to converge with EPS," Credit Suisse said.

Data flows were light with Australian retail sales showing a surprise softness, falling 0.1 percent in November from October, undershooting forecasts for a 0.3 percent rise on the month and sending the Australian dollar down to session lows of $1.0486 from $1.0517 before the data was released.

China will release its trade data on Thursday, which includes initial estimates for metals imports and exports.

Australian retail sales: http://link.reuters.com/zew92t

China exports graphic: http://link.reuters.com/kun94t

Euro zone retail sales: http://link.reuters.com/tyb25s

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YEN STAYS WEAK

Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock average <.n225> erased earlier losses to crawl up 0.5 percent as the yen's rebound against the dollar lost steam. Investors had been taking profits from the dollar's steady and sharp rally against the yen of about 12 percent over the past two months. The Nikkei had risen about 21 percent in the same period. <.t/>

The dollar was up 0.5 percent to 87.43 yen, recovering from the day's low of 86.825. It scaled its highest since July 2010 at 88.48 on Friday. The euro also steadied against the yen at 114.35, off the day lows of 113.55. The euro last week hit 115.995 yen, its highest since July 2011.

The Bank of Japan will consider easing monetary policy again at its January 21-22 meeting, by likely boosting buying of government bonds and treasury discount bills, while considering a doubling of its inflation target to 2 percent.

Expectations of much bolder monetary easing from the BOJ to help Japan beat deflation under new Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have encouraged investors to sell the yen.

But as trading resumed from year-end holidays, analysts and traders said markets were ripe for position adjustments.

"After a good run in risk assets since December, we entered in a phase of consolidation which is moving from Japanese equities to short JPY positions," said Sebastien Galy, FX strategist at Societe Generale in New York, in a note, adding that the dollar could consolidate to 85 yen but must first take out the first Fibonacci retracement at 85.75 yen.

Yen crosses which had been bought the most, including the yen/Korean won, are the most exposed to the correction.

"Such a washout in JPY crosses is the opportunity many long-term investors will be waiting for to continue their switch into strategic short yen positions," he said.

The euro held steady against the dollar at $1.3075.

With no major economic data this week, the euro was seen staying in a range ahead of Thursday's European Central Bank policy meeting and Spanish and Italian bond auctions toward the end of the week.

U.S. crude was nearly flat at $93.17 a barrel, after the annual rebalancing of the S&P GSCI commodity index, which increased its weighting for Brent and reduced its share of U.S. WTI crude. Brent was also little changed at $111.90.

Sentiment turned cautious in Asian credit markets, with the spread on the iTraxx Asia ex-Japan investment-grade index widening slightly by 1 basis point.

(Additional reporting by Joyce Lee in Seoul; Editing by Eric Meijer)

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Chemical Weapons Showdown With Syria Led to Rare Accord

Muzaffar Salman/Reuters

The violence in Syria continued on Monday. Above, Syrians went to the aid of a man who was wounded when a missile hit the al-Mashhad district of Aleppo.

WASHINGTON — In the last days of November, Israel’s top military commanders called the Pentagon to discuss troubling intelligence that was showing up on satellite imagery: Syrian troops appeared to be mixing chemicals at two storage sites, probably the deadly nerve gas sarin, and filling dozens of 500-pounds bombs that could be loaded on airplanes.

Within hours President Obama was notified, and the alarm grew over the weekend, as the munitions were loaded onto vehicles near Syrian air bases. In briefings, administration officials were told that if Syria’s increasingly desperate president, Bashar al-Assad, ordered the weapons to be used, they could be airborne in less than two hours — too fast for the United States to act, in all likelihood.

What followed next, officials said, was a remarkable show of international cooperation over a civil war in which the United States, Arab states, Russia and China have almost never agreed on a common course of action.

The combination of a public warning by Mr. Obama and more sharply worded private messages sent to the Syrian leader and his military commanders through Russia and others, including Iraq, Turkey and possibly Jordan, stopped the chemical mixing and the bomb preparation. A week later Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said the worst fears were over — for the time being.

But concern remains that Mr. Assad could now use the weapons produced that week at any moment. American and European officials say that while a crisis was averted in that week from late November to early December, they are by no means resting easy.

“I think the Russians understood this is the one thing that could get us to intervene in the war,” one senior defense official said last week. “What Assad understood, and whether that understanding changes if he gets cornered in the next few months, that’s anyone’s guess.”

While chemical weapons are technically considered a “weapon of mass destruction” — along with biological and nuclear weapons — in fact they are hard to use and hard to deliver. Whether an attack is effective can depend on the winds and the terrain. Sometimes attacks are hard to detect, even after the fact. Syrian forces could employ them in a village or a neighborhood, some officials say, and it would take time for the outside world to know.

But the scare a month ago has renewed debate about whether the West should help the Syrian opposition destroy Mr. Assad’s air force, which he would need to deliver those 500-pound bombs.

The chemical munitions are still in storage areas that are near or on Syrian air bases, ready for deployment on short notice, officials said.

The Obama administration and other governments have said little in public about the chemical weapons movements, in part because of concern about compromising sources of intelligence about the activities of Mr. Assad’s forces. This account is based on interviews with more than half a dozen military, intelligence and diplomatic officials, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the intelligence matters involved.

The head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, warned in a confidential assessment last month that the weapons could now be deployed four to six hours after orders were issued, and that Mr. Assad had a special adviser at his side who oversaw control of the weapons, the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported. Some American and other allied officials, however, said in interviews that the sarin-laden bombs could be loaded on planes and airborne in less than two hours.

“Let’s just say right now, it would be a relatively easy thing to load this quickly onto aircraft,” said one Western diplomat.

How the United States and Israel, along with Arab states, would respond remains a mystery. American and allied officials have talked vaguely of having developed “contingency plans” in case they decided to intervene in an effort to neutralize the chemical weapons, a task that the Pentagon estimates would require upward of 75,000 troops. But there have been no evident signs of preparations for any such effort.

The United States military has quietly sent a task force of more than 150 planners and other specialists to Jordan to help the armed forces there, among other things, prepare for the possibility that Syria will lose control of its chemical weapons.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was reported to have traveled to Jordan in recent weeks, and the Israeli news media have said the topic of discussion was how to deal with Syrian weapons if it appeared that they could be transferred to Lebanon, where Hezbollah could lob them over the border to Israel. But the plans, to the extent they exist, remain secret.

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