WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's chief of staff and two leading U.S. senators said on Friday they were determined to come up with a plan to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which would fulfill Obama's five-year-old campaign promise.

"We continue to believe that it is in our national interest to end detention at Guantanamo with a safe and orderly transition of the detainees to other locations," White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, Senator Dianne Feinstein and Senator John McCain said in a joint statement.

"We intend to work, with a plan by Congress and the administration together, to take the steps necessary to make that happen," the group said after a tour of facility, which the United States has used to hold enemy combatants and terrorism suspects since shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The tour included the maximum-security Camp 7, which holds about 15 "high-value captives" sent to Guantanamo in 2006 from former CIA prisons overseas, a source familiar with the trip said. The Pentagon has asked Congress for money to replace the building.

Feinstein, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, and McCain, a top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee who lost the 2008 election to Obama, have long argued that the prison should be closed.

Detainees have complained of abuse and torture - Washington has denied the accusations - and rights activists and international observers have criticized the U.S. government's use of the prison.

But other U.S. lawmakers have blocked the move, arguing that the administration has not offered satisfactory alternatives on what to do with the detainees.

In their joint statement, McDonough, McCain and Feinstein said the prisoners were being held "in a safe and respectful way."

Obama, who promised during the 2008 election campaign to close the facility, last month pledged to lift a ban imposed on transfers of detainees to Yemen from the prison, one of the core obstacles to clearing out the detention camp.

Of the 86 detainees who have been cleared for transfer or release, 56 are from Yemen, where al Qaeda has a dangerous presence. An unknown number of the 80 other prisoners at the camp who are not cleared are Yemeni as well.

More than 100 prisoners in the camp have joined a hunger strike to protest the failure to resolve their fate after more than a decade of detention, and 41 are being force-fed through tubes inserted into their noses and down into their stomachs because they have lost so much weight.

Visiting officials typically start with a briefing by base commander Rear Admiral John Smith, followed by a tour of the primary detention facilities, Camp 5 and Camp 6, where the majority of the detainees live.

They also are shown prisoner health facilities, including the hospital and behavioral health unit, and support facilities such as the barracks where troops live and the kitchen where meals are prepared for both the prisoners and U.S. soldiers.

One of the final stops is the naval base's legal complex, including the courtroom where the military tribunals are held.

(Additional reporting by Jane Sutton in Miami; Editing by Vicki Allen and Paul Simao)

Still grieving, Djokovic began shakily Monday. Six of the match's first seven unforced errors were his. After one poor exchange, he chucked his racket hard enough to break it. He dropped a set for the only time in four matches so far.

After recovering quickly to dispatch 16th-seeded Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 and reach the quarterfinals at a 16th consecutive major tournament, Djokovic spoke from the heart about the passing of Jelena Gencic, who was 76.

"It hasn't been easy, but this is life. You know, life gives you things (but also) takes away close people," Djokovic said. "We were very close throughout my whole life, and she taught me a lot of things that are part of me, part of my character."

Gencic connected with a 6-year-old Novak at a tennis camp, then worked with him for five years.

"I feel even more responsible now to go all the way in this tournament," said the No. 1-ranked Djokovic, who owns six Grand Slam titles but none from Roland Garros. "I want to do it for her."

He'll need to beat three more opponents to accomplish that, starting with 12th-seeded Tommy Haas, who at 35 became the oldest French Open quarterfinalist since 1971 by eliminating Mikhail Youzhny 6-1, 6-1, 6-3 in less than 1 hours.

By the second set, Youzhny was so out of sorts he destroyed a racket by slamming it nine times against his sideline seat.

Haas is a four-time Grand Slam semifinalist who climbed to No. 2 in the rankings at age 24. But recent times have been difficult because of serious injuries and operations, including to his right shoulder and hip, and he missed more than a full season.

"Who would have thought two years ago I'd be in this position today?" Haas asked. "I wouldn't have."

He's certainly persistent.

The 12 French Open appearances it took Haas to reach his first quarterfinal in Paris is a record. And he needed 13 match points in the third round to get past John Isner in five sets.

"It's easy sometimes to ... throw the white towel and say, 'I'm done. I have achieved a lot of things. I don't really have to worry so much financially and I can live a good life.' But at the same time," Haas explained, "maybe there was something in me still that said, 'You know what? I can maybe still do something.'"

If Djokovic can get past Haas, he'll find a familiar foe in the semifinals: seven-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal, who played his first relatively routine opening set of the tournament and put together a 6-4, 6-1, 6-3 victory over No. 13 Kei Nishikori of Japan.

Nadal, who beat Djokovic in last year's final and is 56-1 in his French Open career, declared: "I played much better today than the first three matches. No doubt about that."

Consider that something of a warning for No. 9 Stanislas Wawrinka, who was trailing by two sets when he got into an extended and animated argument with the chair umpire, demanding that a line judge be replaced. Wawrinka slowly, steadily turned the match around and edged No. 7 Richard Gasquet 6-7 (5), 4-6, 6-4, 7-5, 8-6.

Gasquet tired as the match stretched past four hours. Asked afterward where he felt pain, he replied: "In the soul, for sure. A little bit in the leg, too. But more in the soul."

Nadal began the first round by losing the first set. Did the same in the second round. In the third, he was taken to an opening tiebreaker. On Monday, Nishikori started well, winning each of the first five points that lasted at least 10 strokes, no easy feat against Nadal.

Ahead 2-1, Nishikori earned two break points with a forehand winner that had Nadal rolling his eyes. That, though, is when Nadal really got going. A short return set up a backhand winner to erase one break point, and a 121 mph ace took of the other. Nadal broke in the next game, helped by Nishikori's three unforced errors.

"One bad game for me," Nishikori said, "and he (started) playing well."

Nadal was in control the rest of the way on the day he turned 27. The crowd helped him celebrate by singing "Happy Birthday" in French as he was presented with an enormous layered cake festooned with rackets and yellow tennis balls.

"That," said the tournament's other defending champion, Maria Sharapova, "was a pretty cool cake."

She moved into the quarterfinals by beating 17th-seeded Sloane Stephens of the United States 6-4, 6-3, part of a rough day for Americans.

The other two in action also exited in straight sets: 54th-ranked Jamie Hampton lost to 18th-seeded Jelena Jankovic 6-0, 6-2, and 67th-ranked Bethanie Mattek-Sands was beaten by 12th-seeded Maria Kirilenko 7-5, 6-4. Kirilenko, who's engaged to two-time NHL MVP Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals, now meets two-time Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka, a 6-3, 6-0 winner over 2010 French Open titlist Francesca Schiavone.

Fifteen-time major champion Serena Williams, the only U.S. singles player left, plays her quarterfinal against 2009 French Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova on Tuesday, when No. 4 Agnieszka Radwanska faces No. 5 Sara Errani. The men's quarterfinals Tuesday are 17-time major champion Roger Federer against No. 6 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, and No. 4 David Ferrer against No. 32 Tommy Robredo, the first man in 86 years to win three consecutive Grand Slam matches after dropping the opening two sets.

For Federer, this is the 36th Grand Slam quarterfinal in a row, a record for the 45-year Open era. Djokovic's streak isn't even half as long, but it ranks third.

The last time the Serb failed to get that far at a major tournament was the 2009 French Open, where he lost to Kohlschreiber in the third round. Once out of Monday's tricky first set, Djokovic found his strokes and, most of all, his serve, which erased 11 of 13 break points.

His former coach, Gencic, died Saturday, when Djokovic played his third-round match, but his entourage kept the news from him until after that victory. In April 2012, during a tournament at Monte Carlo, Djokovic found out hours before playing a match that his grandfather died.

That experience, Djokovic said, "helped me a little bit to kind of stay tough this time because it took me a long time last year to recover. It was very emotional. This year, of course, again, very close person, so another shock for me. But I'm handling it better. I'm trying to focus my thoughts on the nicest memories."

Djokovic last spent time with Gencic when he visited Belgrade a couple of months ago. Their final phone conversation, he said, was two weeks ago, shortly before the French Open.

"She was honest and open," Djokovic recounted. "She told me, 'Listen, you have to focus. You have to give your attention to this tournament. This is a tournament you need to win.' She was giving me this kind of inspiration and motivation."

___

Follow Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich

That slut-shaming intersects with and mars efforts to preventmight surprise you. Slut-shaming, the sex-negative way of describing someones sexual activities, combines social repercussions, fear, andas its name suggestsshame in an attempt to control the actions of those who are sexually active. The impact is, generally speaking, an increase in STD transmission rates. Young adults who are slut-shamed become embarrassed about their sexual interests, stop communicating what they want and need, and lose the confidence to plan, negotiate, and navigate safer-sex practices. 

The current mayhem began with a wave of protests by Sunnis alleging neglect and mistreatment at the hands of the Shiite-led government of Nouri al-Maliki. Violence has risen steadily since an April 23 crackdown by security forces on a Sunni protest in the northern city of Hawija.

Conflict between Iraq's two main religious communities sounds ominously like the explosion of sectarian hatred unleashed by the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein's Sunni-led regime and propelled the Shiites to power.

Adding to the tension is the civil war in neighboring Syria, where Sunni rebels are seeking to topple Bashar Assad's government, dominated by a spinout of the Shiite faith and backed by Shiite powerhouse Iran.

But the Iraq of 2013 is different from the country seven years ago. The Shiite government is more firmly entrenched in Baghdad. The Sunnis are divided and weakened from setbacks they suffered in the last sectarian war.

Violence is on the rise but far short of the levels when death squads roamed the streets.

Clearly, many Iraqis are still worried.

"I see no solution on the horizon in a country that is full of political and sectarian disputes," said Ali Abdullah, who has blocked parking in front of his mobile phone store in Baghdad's sprawling Shiite district of Sadr City to protect against car bombs.

Mohammad Majeed, a Baghdad businessman in the mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhood of Jihad, is considering fleeing the country.

"Terror is returning to us," Majeed said. "I survived the first round. I don't want to take my chances with a second one."

___

Two AP Chiefs of Bureau in Baghdad, past and present, paint a picture of what it was like then and how things have changed.

___

By ROBERT H. REID

It began with fierce fusillades rapid bursts of gunfire aimed wildly, designed to drive people from the streets as much as to kill. The killing would come soon enough.

In rapid succession, and with military precision, gunmen set up checkpoints along the major streets in west Baghdad's religiously mixed Jihad district, while black-clad Shiite youths strung barbed wire along side streets.

As a blistering sun sent temperatures soaring above 100 degrees, gunmen bearing lists of names roamed house-to-house, taking away fighting-aged men. Some were never seen again. Others were found lifeless in the streets.

At the checkpoints, motorists were hauled from their cars and shot dead if they were found with ID cards identifying them as Sunnis.

By sunset on July 9, 2006, at least 41 people, mostly Sunnis, were dead, according to police. The U.S. military insisted it could only account for 14 deaths. The next day, two bombs exploded in a Shiite neighborhood, killing 10 people in what appeared to be payback.

Whatever the numbers, the Jihad massacre was emblematic of the cold-blooded savagery of Iraq's sectarian conflict, which raged from early 2006 until 2008 and transformed the character of the eight-year Iraq war.

In the month of July 2006 alone, at least 2,708 Iraq civilians were slaughtered, according to a Pentagon count released in 2010. Some at the time estimates put the civilian death toll that month at nearly 3,270. By contrast the U.S. and its international coalition allies lost 43 troops.

As the war entered its third year, the conflict morphed from a straightforward fight between U.S.-led troops and the mostly Shiite Iraqi forces on one hand and Sunni insurgents and al-Qaida on the other into a wave of uncontrolled slaughter and terror in which civilians were the main target.

It became a Shiite-Sunni fight for power with members of the U.S.-backed government surreptitiously involved. Longtime neighbors became mortal enemies based on their religious affiliation alone.

Ground zero was Baghdad and a handful of other religiously and ethnically mixed cities. In those battlegrounds, fear paralyzed daily life, even as people attempted to work or shop or attend school beneath the shadow of sudden and violent death. Streets of once-thriving neighborhoods turned into ghost towns, either largely abandoned or with residents cowering at home in fear.

Panic swept through families when loved ones were late returning from work. Hearts pounded when motorists were stuck in traffic. Did the driver in the next lane look like a would-be car bomber? Was the checkpoint manned by soldiers or militiamen from a rival sect?

Many Sunni families feared venturing to Baghdad's main morgue to claim bodies of loved ones because the area was controlled by Shiite gunmen. In February 2007, the Shiite deputy health minister was arrested for allegedly running death squads, using ambulances for kidnapping and funneling money to Shiite militias. Charges were dismissed a year later amid allegations of witness intimidation. Now that former official, Hakim al-Zamili, is a member of parliament.

Forgers did a thriving business selling forged ID cards bearing fake names identified with a particular sect Omar in case the gunmen were Sunnis, Ali or Hussein if the threat came from Shiites.

Armed men roamed the streets in a deadly cat-and-mouse game with overstretched American soldiers and Iraqi forces some of whom were in collusion with sectarian militias. American spokesmen argued vehemently against any suggestion that Iraq had descended into civil war.

Car bombs and roadside explosives still claimed victims. But much of the mayhem occurred at night and in silence.

Nighttime was when death squads many believed directed by the Shiite-led Ministry of Interior hunted for their victims. Their often mutilated bodies were left on the streets or vacant lots for all to see as dawn rose.

Other victims were dumped into the Tigris River. Their bodies would turn up southeast of the capital near Kut, trapped in underwater nets set up to collect vegetation that can clog the waterway.

How many died because of religion and how many fell victim to common criminals or personal vendettas? No one really knows. In the calculus of barbarity, the Americans came up with their own formula: anyone shot in the head was a victim of sectarianism. Bullets to the torso were deemed the work of common criminals.

___

By ADAM SCHRECK

Fast forward seven years to 2013.

The once-pervasive American troops and armored vehicles are gone. Baghdad neighborhoods are patrolled solely by the Iraqi police and army, which still draw heavily from the Shiite majority that controls the levers of power. At some of their posts, banners bearing the image of Shiite saint Imam Hussein wave proudly a not-so-subtle affirmation of the security forces' sectarian loyalties.

Traffic-clogging checkpoints still block streets lined with concrete blast walls, although many of the barriers have been removed. The car bombings and roadside explosives deployed primarily by Sunni extremists never really went away. It is only their frequency that goes up and down.

They're up sharply these days, with multiple blasts rocking Baghdad and other cities nearly every day.

Iraq again feels at an ominous turning point, even if the tallies of the dead are a fraction of what they were at the height of the bloodshed. A United Nations count said April was the deadliest month since June 2008, with 712 Iraqis killed in violent attacks. That total was surpassed in May, with the UN reporting 1,045 dead.

As recently as a few months ago, there was a feeling of optimism in many parts of Baghdad despite the threat of indiscriminate bloodshed. Parks filled with families out picnicking on holidays, car sales were booming and shiny new restaurants were opening.

But the relentless pounding of violence has brought a renewed sense of terror to the Iraqi capital. In an apparent attempt to thwart car bombings, authorities have imposed a sweeping ban on cars with relatively common temporary license plates, affecting large numbers of commuters.

Fewer people are venturing out on the streets, and businesses are pulling down the shutters earlier than usual.

The late-night televised press conference called by the Sunni finance minister, Rafia al-Issawi, to denounce a raid on his office by security forces back in December seemed at first like the latest in a series of moves that have sidelined prominent Sunnis in the Shiite-led government.

In hindsight, it was the trigger that reignited suppressed Sunni rage and would send masses of protesters into the streets of cities like Ramadi, Fallujah, Samarra and Mosul former insurgent strongholds that had been flashpoints in the U.S.-led battle to exert control over the country.

As the Sunni protest movement gathered steam, so did the sectarian tensions.

Some among the demonstrators in Sunni-dominated Anbar province waved al-Qaida flags symbols of Sunni supremacy and chanted that those with the distinctively Shiite name Abdul-Zahra would not be allowed into the province.

Back in Baghdad's Jihad neighborhood, overt threats not seen in years made a comeback. Leaflets left outside Sunni households warned recipients to leave or face "great agony." They were signed by the Mukhtar Army, a new Shiite militant group with ties to Iran's Revolutionary Guard.

Early on the morning of April 23, Iraqi security forces faced off against an energized group of Sunni protesters, some wielding swords, in the northern town of Hawija. A gunbattle eventually broke out.

By the time it was all over, at least 20 among the protesters were dead along with three soldiers. The Sunni deputy prime minister leading an official government probe into the incident puts the number of protesters killed at more than 40. Human Rights Watch said photos it obtained suggested some demonstrators had their hands bound and had been killed execution-style.

The violent reaction was swift.

Gunmen tried to overrun towns and army posts near Hawija. Bombs exploded outside of Sunni mosques and worshippers leaving others were felled by gunfire.

Iraqi officials believe more militant groups are joining Sunni jihadists like al-Qaida in attacks against Shiites and symbols of government authority. The attacks on Sunni holy sites, meanwhile, have killed more than 100 people since Hawija, raising the possibility that Shiite militias are getting involved in tit-for-tat attacks.

___

Reid, currently Chief of Bureau for Germany, Austria and Switzerland, has covered Iraq since 2003 and can be followed at http://twitter.com/rhreid. Schreck has been Chief of Bureau in Baghdad since 2012 and can be followed at http://twitter.com/adamschreck.

___

Associated Press writers Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court justices on Monday signaled reluctance to issue too broad a ruling about patents on human genes, and some indicated they might seek a compromise distinguishing between types of genetic material.

The biotechnology industry has warned that an expansive ruling against Myriad Genetics Inc could threaten billions of dollars of investment.

In weighing the question of whether any human genes can ever be patented - meaning the holders have exclusive rights to their intellectual property for a defined period - the nine justices asked tough questions about isolated genes that Myriad holds patents for.

But the justices also appeared to be inclined to draw a line between synthetically produced genetic material and natural genes.

A court ruling along those lines, suggested by the Obama administration, would have less impact on Myriad. Some of the latest research using human genes involves a synthetic form of DNA called recombinant DNA, or rDNA.

Shares of Myriad were up $1.43 or 5.4 percent at $27.53 on midday trading on the Nasdaq. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 1 percent.

The Myriad patents in dispute will all expire by 2015. A ruling is due by the end of June this year.

In probing the limits of what can be patented, the justices cited a wide range of products in raising hypothetical questions, including chocolate-chip cookies and baseball bats.

A group of medical researchers, associations and patients say human genes, including synthetically produced material, should not be patented. They sued in 2009, challenging seven patents owned by or licensed to Myriad on two human genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer. A federal judge said the patents were invalid. An appeals court overruled that decision, and the case landed at the Supreme Court.

Under the federal Patent Act, an inventor can obtain a patent on various new processes and products but "laws of nature, natural phenomena and abstract ideas" are not patentable. The broad legal question is whether the genes Myriad patented, called BRCA1 and BRCA2, are a product of nature. The appeals court said they were not.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted patents on at least 4,000 human genes to companies, universities and others that have discovered and decoded them.

CHOCOLATE CHIPS AND BASEBALL BATS

Lawyers from both sides and the Obama administration probed the limits of what can be patented. Justices cited examples of more familiar products, including chocolate-chip cookies and baseball bats.

It was Sotomayor who brought up the chocolate-chip cookies, wondering whether if it was possible to get a patent on an isolated human gene, it would be possible to do the same for salt, eggs and other cookie ingredients.

Separately, both Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts seized upon the suggestion made by Myriad lawyer Gregory Castanias that a baseball bat doesn't exist until it's isolated from the tree.

Roberts said a baseball bat was "quite different" because "you have to invent it" and not just "cut it off" from the tree.

Alito raised an even more extreme hypothetical question by asking whether a baseball bat that was naturally crafted after a piece of wood was tossed about in the ocean before washing up on shore could then be patented.

Several of the justices also ruminated at length on another colorful hypothetical question, also offered by Alito, concerning under what circumstances a company could claim a patent on material from a plant found in the Amazon jungle that can help treat cancer.

Others on the bench, such as Justice Elena Kagan, indicated concerns about the impact a broad ruling could have on companies that invest in such research.

"Why shouldn't we worry that Myriad or companies like it will just say, 'well, you know, we're not going to do this work anymore'?" she asked Christopher Hansen, the lawyer representing the challengers.

Alito appeared most concerned about the court issuing a sweeping ruling on what he described as a "very difficult" question.

"Why should we do that?" he asked.

POSSIBLE COMPROMISE?

Hansen sought to defuse concerns among the justices that he was asking for too broad a ruling. He said he was not asking for patents on rDNA to be invalidated, something industry groups had raised concerns about.

"Recombinant DNA is in fact what all the major innovations in the industry are doing these days," he said. "There is nothing in our position that would prevent recombinant DNA from being patented."

The Obama administration, which intervened in the case in support of neither side, has urged a compromise position, which several justices probed during the hour-long argument.

Government lawyers say that "synthesized genetic materials" can be patented because they are human-made inventions. But simply removing, or isolating, human DNA does not substantively change it and so it should not be eligible for a patent, the administration says.

If the court were to adopt that approach, which neither the plaintiffs nor Myriad accept, some of Myriad's patents, concerning synthetic molecules called cDNA, could survive, although the parties disagree on that point as well.

A majority appeared inclined to find that cDNA could be patented.

Emphasizing a need to tread carefully, Justice Stephen Breyer noted that patent law often involves "uneasy compromises."

Justice Anthony Kennedy asked Castanias directly whether a ruling based on the government position would give industry "sufficient protection" relating to innovation and research.

"I can't tell you for a certainty whether it would hurt the industry," Castanias said.

The case is Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-398.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Howard Goller, John Wallace and Sofina Mirza-Reid)

The couple is awaiting permission from penal authorities for a wedding within two weeks in Piedras Gordas prison, lawyer Maximo Altez told The Associated Press.

"He is in love, that is what motivates all men (to marry), he truthfully is in love," Altez said Friday about his client, who was convicted of the brutal 2010 murder of a young Lima woman he met in a casino.

Altez's comment followed speculation in Peruvian media that Van der Sloot wants to marry 23-year-old Leydi Figueroa Uceda to avoid possible extradition to the United States. The lawyer denied that was the case.

The 24-year-old Dutchman remains the chief suspect in the 2005 disappearance in his native Aruba of U.S. teenager Natalee Holloway.

Holloway was 18 years old when she vanished during a high school graduation trip to Aruba. She was last seen leaving a bar the morning of May 30, 2005 with Van der Sloot.

Holloway's body was never found and the ensuing searches for her would create intense media scrutiny and worldwide attention. A judge later declared Holloway dead.

Van der Sloot faces extortion and wire fraud charges in Alabama in connection with Holloway's unsolved disappearance, which occurred five years to the day before he killed 21-year-old Peruvian business student Stephany Flores after playing poker with her in a Lima casino.

U.S. prosecutors allege Van der Sloot accepted $25,000 in cash from Holloway's family in exchange for a promise to lead an attorney for the family to her body in early 2010 just before he went to Lima.

Altez said that Van der Sloot met Figueroa while she was selling goods inside the Peruvian prison. The young woman visited Van der Sloot constantly after that and several months ago he began taking the steps needed to wed.

The lawyer denied press reports that Figueroa bore Van der Sloot a son.

On Wednesday, Altez sought a sentence reduction to 20 years for Van der Sloot.

He said he should hear back from the Supreme Court in about 10 days.

"He wants to get married, change his life, make a new life," he said.

The world's biggest software company said on Tuesday it was expanding its Windows Azure business to include a major new region in Australia.

Data centers, renting out technology resources such as computing power and storage, will be established in the states of New South Wales and Victoria.

"These two locations will be geo-redundant, offering our customers the ability to back up their data across two separate locations, both within Australia," Toby Bowers, Microsoft Australia's Server & Tools Group Lead said on company's blog site. "We know that providing disaster recovery, while ensuring data sovereignty goals are met, is critical to many of our customers."

Such cloud computing, pioneered by Amazon.com Inc, is a fast-growing business for Microsoft and has attracted other big tech names including Google Inc.

Microsoft claims more than 200,000 Windows Azure customers, but the company does not break out the revenue from it.

(Reporting by Lincoln Feast; Editing by Gary Hill)

[More from BGR: ]

Lal Shimpi compiled all the known specs for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 alongside the current-generation Xbox 360 in the following grid:

[More from BGR: ]

isrecommendedreading, but here are the nuts and bolts in terms of hardware:

While both consoles make use of an eight-core AMD Jaguar processor which is a big win for AMD the PlayStation 4 features 1,152 GPU cores compared to the Xbox Ones 768 graphics cores. Sonys new console drives 1.84 TFLOPS as a result, compared to the new Xboxs peak shader throughput of 1.23 TFLOPS.

The PlayStation 4 also has the edge when it comes to system memory, featuring8GB of 5500MHz GDDR5 memory compared to the Xbox Ones8GB of 2133MHz DDR3 RAM. Embedded memory and embedded memory bandwidth for the Xbox One are still unknown.

What does all this mean? In terms of raw gaming power, Sonys PlayStation 4 is the clear winner. As we have discussed in the past, however,to an extent, as Microsoft continues to layer more home entertainment features on top of the Xboxs gaming features.

For hardcore gamers though, the PlayStation 4 seems like the better bet at this point assumingis removed from the equation.

This article was

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 10 points at 15,297 as of noon Eastern Daylight Time, a loss of 0.1 percent. It had been down 127 points in the early going following steep losses in European and Japanese markets.

Traders attributed the early swoon on Wall Street and in overseas markets to the slowdown in China's economic engine and worries among investors that the Federal Reserve may ease back on its economic stimulus program.

The Dow is still up 16.7 percent this year.

The Standard & Poor's 500 fell five points to 1,650, or 0.3 percent. The Nasdaq composite fell five points to 3,457, or 0.2 percent.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry allowed that President Barack Obama won't send American troops to Syria. But he made clear that more aid to the rebels would be coming if the regime refuses to cooperate with an international effort to be put together in June in Geneva to form a transitional government.

"In the event that we can't find that way forward, in the event that the Assad regime is unwilling to negotiate Geneva in good faith, we will also talk about our continued support, growing support for opposition in order to permit them to continue to fight for the freedom of their country," Kerry said.

Obama "has also made it clear that he intends to support the broad-based opposition, and he has taken no options off the table with respect to how that support may be provided, or what kind of support that might be," he told a news conference with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh before a meeting between Kerry and the foreign ministers of 10 close American partners.

Wednesday's meeting comes after several weeks of military gains by the Assad regime, including the reopening of a key southern highway to Jordan and a push into a strategic rebel-held western town over the weekend.

Such successes will likely harden Assad's position in any peace talks. The Syrian leader has said that he will not step down as a result of transition talks, and that Syria's political future must be determined in elections.

Kerry and the other top diplomats met behind closed doors for more than two hours Wednesday evening in Amman to discuss how to change the momentum.

A Jordanian-based Western diplomat, who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said the Assad regime was proving more resilient than expected. He said his government was concluding the rebels might not be able to defeat it without greater and more direct assistance.

Some of that new resilience in the Syrian regime comes from help from Iran and the militant Hezbollah movement.

Kerry warned those regime allies to stop providing assistance to Assad, saying such activity "perpetuates the regime's campaign of terror against its own people."

"We have to hope that Bashar Assad and his regime will understand the meaning of that and the Iranians and others will understand the meaning of that," Kerry said. "The president will keep those options available to him short of American forces on ground."

To that end, an administration official in Washington said the White House would soon notify Congress about an expanded package of non-lethal assistance to the Syrian rebels.

Details of the aid package are still being finalized, according to the official, who was not authorized to discuss the expanded aid publicly and insisted on anonymity.

But the package is likely to include armored vehicles and communications gear, two U.S. officials said. It is not expected to include night vision goggles or body armor, underscoring the cautious approach the U.S. has taken regarding military-style assistance to the opposition.

As Kerry and his counterparts arrived at the meeting venue in Amman, about 250 pro-Assad demonstrators blocked the main entrance.

The protesters, a mix of Jordanians and Syrians, chanted "Death to America," and, "Go home, Kerry we don't want you here."

A key battle has been waged since Sunday over control of the western town of Qusair, which had been in rebel hands for more than a year. Qusair is located along a land corridor that links two Assad strongholds, the capital Damascus and the heartland of Assad's Alawite sect along the Mediterranean coast.

Syrian troops backed by fighters from Lebanon's Shiite Muslim Hezbollah militia have pushed into Qusair since the start of the offensive. Underlining its importance, Syria's main opposition alliance, the Syrian National Coalition, on Wednesday urged rebel fighters from across Syria to converge on the town to help defend it.

Opposition fighters in Qusair were holding out Wednesday, but appeared to be under increasing strain as government tanks and artillery pounded the town and warplanes bombed it from the sky.

The battle for Qusair has also raised Hezbollah's profile in Syria's civil war. The Lebanese militia, one of Assad's staunchest allies, initially tried to play down its involvement to avoid political backlash at home, but could no longer do so after dozens of its fighters were killed in Qusair this week, followed by funerals drawing large crowds in Lebanon.

Most of Lebanon's Sunni Muslims back the Syria's predominantly Sunni opposition, while Shiites support the Assad regime, which is dominated by members of his minority Alawite sect, an off-shoot of Shiite Islam.

The battle in Qusair, six miles from the Lebanese border, was accompanied by new sectarian clashes in Lebanon's northern port city of Tripoli. Supporters and opponents of Assad have traded gunfire every day since Sunday, leaving 10 people dead and more than 100 wounded, Lebanese security officials said.

At the news conference, Kerry and Judeh both stressed that the goal is to get the Syrian government and opposition into political transition talks that could begin as early as next month in Geneva.

Without that, violence will continue and the death toll from the conflict will continue to rise, he said.

"Let's assume there is no Geneva 2," Kerry said. "Let's assume we don't come together as community of nations to try to find a peaceful process."

"What will happen? What will happen is an absolute guarantee that violence will continue and the world will be standing on the sidelines doing nothing constructive to try to end that violence. That's unacceptable," he said.

Judeh said, "Innocent blood shed every day in Syria and the destruction of culture and heritage puts on us a moral responsibility to help the Syrians achieve a political solution."

The comments came a day after a Senate panel voted to provide weapons to the rebels, the first time American lawmakers have endorsed the aggressive U.S. military step of arming the opposition.

With a degree of trepidation, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 15-3 for a bill that would provide lethal assistance and military training to vetted rebel groups, and would slap sanctions on anyone such as Iran or Russia who sells oil or transfers arms to the Assad regime. The measure would also establish a $250 million fund to aid in the transition if and when Assad falls.

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Mroue reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Julie Pace and Matthew Lee in Washington and Jamal Halaby in Amman contributed to this report.