"All this time, we were the only state service they didnt destroy, says Abdoulaye Ciss, an archaeology professor and acting director of the institute. Mr. Ciss sits on a bench in the institutes enclosure, a temple-like complex with inner courts and alleys partly open to the sky, as the wind tosses ashes from a pile near his feet.

During their nine months in control of Timbuktu, Islamists wrecked some of the citys historic sites and terrorized its people. Last week, as French andtroops advanced, they torched around 2,000 of the Baba Ahmed Institutes manuscripts a parting shot that locals are still trying to understand.

I can imagine two motivations, says Ciss. First, they want to make war on Mali and its heritage. Second, they see no value in anything but the Quran."

Many of the Islamist militants in Mali share a violent form of salafism, an ultraconservative reformist trend in Islam that seeks to emulate the religions earliest generations. That means following core texts to the letter, while largely rejecting 14 centuries of Islamic thought, scholarship and spirituality.

In Timbuktu, that translated largely to oppression and vandalism under rule by Ansar al-Din and(AQIM), two of three Islamist militant groups that overran Malis north last year.

BEATINGS, MUTILATION

Smoking and music were punished with beatings, and theft with cutting off the accused persons hand. Last summer, militants demolished the graves of Sufi holy men venerated here as links to God a common practice in Islamic mysticism that looks to some conservatives like polytheism.

Yet few, if any, in Timbuktu expected the citys manuscripts to be targeted. For months, militants including those who took up residence in the Baba Ahmed Institute made no move against them.

Timbuktus wealth of Islamic manuscripts - estimated in the scores of thousands - date to its role as a trading hub and center of learning in the late Middle Ages. The city reached a zenith in the 16th century, when books were among the most precious commodities and scholars were supported by the state.

The best-known scholar was perhaps Ahmed Baba, who produced dozens of works mainly on theology and Islamic jurisprudence. But meanwhile, up north, trouble was brewing. Invasion by an army of thesultan in 1591 saw scholars including Baba Ahmed arrested or deported and Timbuktu slid into decline.

In recent decades, the Malian government and family-owned libraries have worked to restore Timbuktus manuscripts and present them to the world. The state-run Baba Ahmed Institute, as well as some private libraries, have facilities to restore, catalog, and scan manuscripts.

Every manuscript is important, even if its just a scrap of paper even if its only two or three words, says Hamou Mohamed Ddeou, a manuscript specialist in Timbuktu who has worked with the Baba Ahmed Institute and advised foreign scholars.

RICH TEXTS

It was in this spirit that Mr. Ddeou wrote The Role of Symbols and Tables in Applying the Studies of the Ancients, an explanatory work aimed at helping students appreciate the richness of some texts.

In one example, a seemingly nonsensical couplet by Ahmed Baba is revealed as a mnemonic device. Letters represent numbers, which in turn count the steps to take along ones own shadow in various months to calculate certain prayer times.

The couplet ends with the phrase And with the rest, dont be stubborn. Ddeou likes to understand it thus: Dont be stubborn concerning what you dont know.

While no threat arose against Timbuktus manuscripts in the early days of the Islamist occupation, curators werent taking chances. There was a general sense of lawlessness. Ciss had most of the Baba Ahmed Institutes roughly 30,000 texts spirited out of town and sent up thein pirogues; Abdelkader Haidara, a private curator, arranged for manuscripts to be hidden in houses.

Then came turmoil this month, as an Islamist push south provoked a counter-offensive by French and Malian forces. In town after town, militants cleared out as their enemies advanced.

Last Thursday morning, people living near the Baba Ahmed Institute awoke to see smoke rising from within. In an adjacent neighborhood, Lithnin Dicko, one of the institutes two watchmen then jobless thanks to the Islamist occupancy was about to eat breakfast when a man appeared at his house.

Come quick! The manuscripts are burning! the man said. Mr. Dicko dashed over to the Institute, through the door, down an alleyway and around a corner, to find a small courtyard full of flame. There was nothing I could do but watch the manuscripts burn, he says.

This morning, a tumble of plastic manuscript cases with serial numbers on the spines lay in the courtyard beside a pile of ashes. Staff were busy changing the locks. An alarm that Dicko says was somehow triggered by Islamists couldn't be switched off, and was still wailing.

The loss isnt total, says Ciss. Manuscripts have been destroyed and the computers holding their scanned images stolen, but there are back-up scans at the institutes facility in , the capital. Yet something of Timbuktus soul has been wounded.

Human beings want to be in contact with what is original, says Ddeou. One wants to touch. That is what we will miss.

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RIM said on Wednesday that the new device management system - BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 (BES 10)- is now available to government agencies and corporate clients. The system lets clients support both corporate-and employee-owned devices and provides a single platform to manage BlackBerry, Android and Apple's iOS-based devices.

The Blackberry smartphones, powered by an all-new operating system, are pivotal to the future of RIM, which has ceded market share to Apple Inc's iPhone and devices powered by Google Inc's market-leading Android operating system.

RIM is now betting that its re-engineered new line of touch-screen and keyboard devices will help it win back consumers and market share.

The fate of the new smartphones could well be determined by the reception from RIM's major clients, many of whom have, so far, only stuck by RIM because of the strong security features that BlackBerry devices offer.

The new mobile device management system builds on RIM's core strength of security, but it offers a range of innovations that allow it to cater to the latest needs of IT departments, said Peter Devenyi, RIM's senior head of enterprise software.

"We definitely anticipate that (enterprise) customers will be making the switch to BB10 rapidly," said Devenyi, describing the feedback from government agencies and the business community as remarkably positive.

Both BES 10 and the new Blackberry 10 devices have already secured Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 certification, a coveted U.S. government security clearance that will allow government agencies to deploy the new devices as soon as they are launched.

BLACKBERRY BALANCE

Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM said BES 10 also supports RIM's BlackBerry Balance technology, which allows IT departments and users to separate work applications and data on BlackBerry devices from personal content.

"BlackBerry Balance is a truly differentiated feature that's built into the core of BlackBerry 10," said Devenyi. "This opens up the world of personally owned devices in a way that make IT departments and corporations comfortable, because they can truly manage the corporate side of the device, while not inhibiting the use of the device by the individual who actually owns it."

This means private pictures, music and emails are safe, even if a company decides to wipe corporate content from a device.

Scotiabank analyst Gus Papageorgiou believes that this one feature alone is likely to be a big factor in swaying enterprise customers to upgrade to RIM's BlackBerry 10 devices.

"We believe BlackBerry Balance is the key feature which will drive enterprise demand," Papageorgiou said in a note to clients on Tuesday. "The BB10's ability to segment between corporate and personal settings will be a hit with enterprise IT departments and users alike."

RIM said its new platform will also offer a new corporate app store for BlackBerry 10 devices, allowing organizations to manage the deployment of in-house applications on employee-owned devices.

"We've been testing BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 in our environment and we're pleased with the manageability, security and reliability," said Peter Lesser, the head of global technology at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, in a statement issued by RIM.

(Reporting by Euan Rocha; Editing by Janet Guttsman and Andrew Hay)

Almost 100,000 tickets for Titanic Belfast, a striking aluminium-clad building which tells the famous ship's story through special effects, interactive screens and a ride, have been sold ahead of the opening.

Organisers hope the 97 million ($155 million, 116 million euro) centre can boost tourism in the British province, which was torn apart by sectarian strife for three decades until the late 1990s.

"We want to bring people to Northern Ireland not just to see what a generation 100 years ago were able to achieve, but what this generation can achieve in this new era of peace," said First Minister Peter Robinson.

Cyril Quigley, a 105-year-old who watched the Titanic's launch more than a century ago, joined the province's leaders at the opening of the building, which takes the form of four of the ship's huge prows.

"All I saw was this big thing sliding out into the water," Quigley said as he recalled watching with his parents. "I was only four and half."

Quigley said the new centre, which rose from the derelict Harland and Wolff shipyard, was "wonderful".

"I often thought they would make another plastic ship here and have it as a restaurant or something, but this is fantastic," he said. "It's like our Sydney Opera House."

The biggest, most ambitious ship of the age hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean from Southampton to New York, sinking on April 15, 1912. Of the 2,224 people aboard, 1,514 perished.

Organisers hope the six-storey Titanic Belfast, which also features a banqueting space containing a replica of the ship's grand staircase, will attract 425,000 visitors in its first year, including many from Asia.

TV ratings company Nielsen said 18 U.S. television networks and cable channels carried live coverage over about six hours of Monday's swearing-in ceremony, speech and parade in Washington.

Monday's TV audience was a drop of 17.2 million from 2009, when 37.8 million Americans - the highest number since Ronald Reagan's 1981 inauguration - watched Obama formally take office as the first black president in U.S. history.

The Nielsen figures did not measure viewers who watched Monday's daylong ceremonies online via live streaming on many TV channels, nor overseas audiences.

Second-term inaugurations of U.S. presidents have traditionally drawn smaller numbers of viewers than those for first terms.

Reagan's 1981 inauguration drew the biggest television audience of the past 44 years, attracting some 41.8 million U.S. viewers, according to Nielsen.

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bill Trott)

I live in another state and don't see my grandmother very often. I call her once or twice a month. When I do, she's nothing but pleasant with me, but she's often angry and tearful about other members of the family.

She feels her children and grandchildren should respect her as the matriarch of the family and include her in all family get-togethers. (My family tells me they have stopped inviting her to many functions because she's such a troublemaker.)

I'm concerned about my grandmother and am beginning to think that my parents and siblings should overlook her unpleasant behavior and occasional snide remarks. At the very least they should include her in important family functions. I'd be interested in your opinion, so I can share it with my family. -- TROUBLED IN MINNESOTA

DEAR TROUBLED: Your grandmother appears to be reaping what she has sown. Verbal abuse often leaves scars on those at whom it is aimed, and no one can be blamed for wanting distance from a person who is deliberately hurtful.

Respect is something that has to be earned. Your parents and siblings "respect" your grandmother from a distance because they have learned it's the only safe way to do so.

Does this mean she should automatically be excluded from all family get-togethers? No. However, before she's invited to an important event, she should give assurances that she'll watch her mouth and be on her best behavior. Or else.

If this seems heavy-handed, so be it. It's no crime to protect oneself from someone else's mean-spiritedness.

DEAR ABBY: Please allow me to share a dating technique with your readers that has saved me a lot of relationship headaches. I call it "the 90-day rule."

Whenever I start dating someone, I try to see them at least once a week for 90 days. That way, if there are any character flaws, I find out within the first 90 days.

Among the flaws I've discovered: drug dealing and addiction, alcoholism, driving without a valid license and with illegal license tags, and lying about their occupation.

The idea is to avoid sexual intimacy during those first 90 days to keep your head clear. If you are intimate too soon, you'll find yourself making excuses for your partner. This technique has never failed me -- unless I made an exception.

May I suggest your readers try this 90-day rule? If they do, I promise they won't be disappointed because it takes time to get to know someone. Before you can love someone, you must learn who that person really is. -- CLEARHEADED IN CLEARWATER, FLA.

DEAR CLEARHEADED: Your 90-day rule makes a lot of sense. I have heard from many readers who went too far too fast because they felt they had made an instant emotional connection. I warn them that physical attraction should not be confused with love because what they're really describing is infatuation.

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Write Dear Abby ator P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.

For everything you need to know about wedding planning, order "How to Have a Lovely Wedding." Send your name and mailing address, plus check or money order for $7 (U.S. funds) to: Dear Abby, Wedding Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. (Shipping and handling are included in the price.)

Haltingly, he told how his cousin's body was found in a mass grave with about 40 other victims of a drug gang. Apparently, the cousin had caught a ride with an off-duty soldier and when gunmen stopped the vehicle, they killed everyone on the car.

"There isn't one of us who hasn't felt the pain ... of seeing them take a family member and not being able to ever get them back," said the young civilian self-defense patrol member, who identified himself as "just another representative of the people of the mountain."

Now he has joined hundreds of other men in the southern Mexico state of Guerrero who have taken up arms to defend their villages against drug gangs, a vigilante movement born of frustration at extortion, killings and kidnappings that local police are unable, or unwilling, to stop.

Vigilantes patrol a dozen or more towns in rural Mexico, the unauthorized but often tolerated edge of a growing movement toward armed citizen self-defense squads across the country.

"The situation Mexico is experiencing, the crime, is what has given the communities the legitimacy to say, 'We will assume the tasks that the government has not been able to fulfill,'" said rights activist Roman Hernandez, whose group Tlachinollan has worked with the community forces.

The young man and his masked cohorts stop cars at a checkpoint along the two-lane highway that runs past mango and palm trees to Ayutla, a dusty, sun-struck town of concrete homes with red-tile roofs. Pigs, chickens and skinny dogs root in the dirt while the mountains of the Pacific Coast range loom above.

The men wear fading t-shirts, leather sandals and most are armed with old hunting rifles or ancient 20-gauge shotguns hanging from their shoulders on twine slings as they stop cars and check the IDs of passing drivers.

The reach of drug gangs based in Acapulco, about 45 miles (75 kilometers) away, had intensified to the point that they were demanding protection payments from almost anybody with any property: truck and bus drivers, cattle ranchers, store owners.In a region where farmworkers make less than $6 per day, the situation grew intolerable for everyone.

"When they extorted money from the rancher, he raised the price of beef, and the store owner raised the price of tortillas," said a short, stocky defense-patrol commander who wore a brown ski mask and a black leather jacket. Because the patrols are not formally recognized by the courts, the law or the government and they fear drug cartel reprisals most members wear masks and refuse to give their full names.

An example of the danger came in late July when the city's official police chief was found shot to death on the edge of town.

It was another attack by criminals that sparked the movement in Ayutla: In early January, gang members kidnapped a commander of an existing community police force in a nearby town.

"Maybe they wanted to intimidate us, but it backfired. They just awakened the people," said one of the older vigilantes, a straw-hatted man without a gun.

Since then, the upstart self-defense movement has spread to other towns and villages such as Las Mesas and El Pericon. On a recent day, Associated Press journalists saw 200 to 300 masked, armed men patrolling, manning checkpoints and moving around in squad-size contingents. Some had only machetes, but most had old single-shot, bolt-action rifles.

Waving guns, they stop each vehicle, and ask for driver's licenses or voter IDs, which they check against a handwritten list of "los malos," or "the bad guys." They sometimes search vehicles and frisk the drivers.

The commander of the Las Mesas vigilantes explains their motives. "We are not against those who are distributing drugs. That's a way for them to earn a living. Let anyone who wants to poison themselves with drugs do it. What we are against is them messing with the local people."

The movement so far seems to be well-accepted by local residents fed up with crime that plagued this stretch of mountain highway.

"In less than a month, they have done something that the army and state and federal police haven't been able to do in years," said local resident Lorena Morales Castro, who waited in a line of cars at a checkpoint Friday. "They are our anonymous heroes."

One vigilante passed sheepishly down the line of waiting cars with a jar asking for donations. Some people tossed in coins or small bills.

Housewife Audifa Miranda Arismendi showed up at the vigilante checkpoint in El Pericon with a vat of chilate, a local beverage made of rice, cocoa beans and cinnamon, for the masked men. "It's good to help out here, because this is for the good of all," she said.

Some officials, too, have cautiously approved of the do-it-yourself police. Guerrero Gov. Angel Aguirre offered to supply them with uniforms so they wouldn't be confused with masked gang members, but he also said he is trying to eliminate the need for vigilantes by beefing up official forces.

Community and indigenous rights activists often see citizen patrols as a good alternative or addition to standard rural police forces that are considered corrupt or repressive.

But clearly, the vigilante squads here present problems even in their first few weeks. The vigilantes in Guerrero are holding, by their own account, 44 people accused of crimes ranging from homicide to theft. Nobody outside the village of El Zapote, where they are being held in a makeshift jail, knows what conditions they are being held in, or what charges, if any, there are against them.

When the head of the Guerrero state Human Rights Commission, Juan Alarcon Hernandez, showed up to check on the prisoners' condition, he was met by about 100 angry villagers who said they didn't want anyone to visit the prisoners. "No, no, no. We want justice!" the crowd shouted.

"We wanted to see what condition these people are in, as a human rights issue and as a humanitarian issue," said Alarcon Hernandez. Eventually, he and his aides turned around and left, unsure how to proceed, because the self-defense squads exist in legal limbo.

Still, the idea of citizen patrols is spreading in Mexico.

In 2011, townsfolk in the pine-covered-hill town of Cheran in neighboring Michoacan state began armed patrols in the face of what they said were the killings of farmers by illegal loggers in league with drug traffickers. In the northern state of Chihuahua, a community of farmers and ranchers known as Colonia Lebaron most of whom hold dual U.S. citizenship set up self-defense squads following the 2009 killings of two of its members.

And in the drug-plagued northern state of Sinaloa, the mayor of Concordia, Jose Elijio Medina, responded to a massacre, which forced everyone in a remote hamlet to flee, by calling for the Mexican army to revive the Rural Self Defense Corps, units of armed farmers it once helped train and supervise. While the army did not respond to requests to say how many of the units remain, local media have reported the army has been trying to wind down the few remaining units.

Since 1995, about 80 villages in Guerrero state have organized legal "community police" forces in which poorly armed villagers detain and prosecute people.

With their own jails, "courts" actually village assemblies that can hand down verdicts and punishments that can include forced labor for the town or re-education talks, the community police are recognized by state law, though rights activist Hernandez said there is still friction when community rules intersect with the formal legal system.

He pointed to one incident in 2012 where a judge and a detective in the Guerrero town of San Luis Acatlan arrested a community police leader for exceeding his authority. Villagers responded by arresting the judge, the detective and an assistant.

Members of the vigilante squads in Guerrero say what they want from the government is some kind of salary, not modern weapons. What counts, they say, are their ties to the community and resistance to corruption.

"When the people are united, it doesn't matter if it's a .22, a 16-gauge shotgun or 20-gauge. It's that when we are united, not even bullets from an AK-47 can defeat us," said the self-defense commander in Las Mesas. "They can't kill us all."

Sales figures for mobile devices reached new heights in 2012. Market research firmtablet sales would near 120 million, about doubling the total sold in 2011.

[More from Mashable: ]

In addition, the number of active smartphones eclipsed 1 billion during the past year. That's one for every seven people on the planet. And while it took almost two decades to reach 1 billion active smartphones, research firmprojects there will be 2 billion by 2015, fueled by growth in developing economies in China, India and Africa.

It's not just phones and tablets though. All sorts offlourished in 2012, from watches and wristbands tothat can project video on the inside of the lenses. Speaking of glasses, in April, Google sent the tech world into a tizzy when it unveiled plans for a futuristic headset called .

[More from Mashable: ]

Well, if you think mobile came a long way in 2012, this year could be even better. Here's an outline of where we think mobile technology is headed in 2013.

In terms of smartphones, mobile in 2013 will be like an evening of boxing. For the main event, heavyweightsandwill square off to see which can produce the world's most popular device.

The Samsung Galaxy IIIthe iPhone for that honor. While Apple went conservative with new features on the iPhone 5, Samsung went bold, equipping thewith an enormous 4.8-inch display, near field communication (NFC) technology (more on this later), a burst-shooting camera and a voice-enabled assistent akin to the iPhone's Siri.

Apparently, Apple is preparing to counter-punch. There are alreadythat Apple is testing its next iPhone, identified as "iPhone 6.1" which runs iOS 7.

Behind the iPhone and Galaxy a host of capable contenders are hungry for a shot at the belt, including devices from ,and .

There might even be some new players in the game. It seems likely that Amazon will debut asometime in 2013. There was even talk that Facebook was working on its own smartphone, but CEO and founderthose rumors in September.

What does this all this mean for us? It means better phones. Competition drives innovation. Look for these brands to consistently try to one-up one another with faster processors, better cameras and more innovative features.

That's not the only battle that will play out in 2013. Another one to watch will be the fight for third place in mobile operating systems. Android is the undisputed number one with nearly . While Apple's iOS is miles behind Android, it is still firmly entrenched at number two.

In 2013, the top two contenders for third place will beand , which isin the coming months.

A few dark horses are running in this race for third. Mozilla plans to launch asometime during 2013. Then, there is , a Linux-based mobile OS. Samsung recently revealed plans to releasein 2013.

Both Firefox and Tizen aremobile operating systems, but they won't be the only ones. There are two other open source mobile operating systems to watch going forward.expects to release smartphones and possibly tablets running its Sailfish OS in 2013; andshould hit the market by early 2014.

Before leaving the house, most will check to make sure they have three things: keys, wallet and cellphone. Well, thanks to NFC technology, cellphones might soon lighten the load by essentially replacing wallets with an "e-wallet."

It seems like we have beenfor years now. Basically, it enables two devices to make a very short-range and secure connection through radio technology. If a smartphone is equipped with NFC, as are most newer-model Androids, and if a retailer has an NFC terminal, one could make a purchase by simply tapping the phone on the terminal.

NFC technology also has other applications, such as data transfer between phones, but mobile payments is the feature most often discussed.

Services likeandare already in place. They secure one's payment information within a device.

The reason why mobile payment through NFC has not yet hit the mainstream is that device penetration is not at the point where it has prompted retailers to update their technology. Basically, not enough smartphones have the technology. Androids have started to adapt, but unlike iPhones, Android hardware is not uniform across the various devices.

While the wheels have been in motion for some time, they're really spinning now that most new Androids, including the Galaxy S III, come with NFC. If Apple releases a new iPhone during 2013, and if Apple decides to include NFC this time around, it will probably tip the scales in favor of rapid adoption of mobile payment.

Even if all that does happen, however, there probably won't be a new iPhone until later in the year, so odds are you're not going to see NFC penetrate the mainstream during 2013. Maybe 2014 will finally be the year of NFC.

Here's something you never knew you needed -- a flexible smartphone. These devices will be lighter, more durable and the screen will be bendable. This feat is possible by making the display out of an(OLED) and shielding it in plastic rather than glass. Samsung is reportedlywith plans to start producing a bendable phone.

Samsung is not the only player in this game, however. Many companies are . At Nokia World in London in 2011,which not only bends but is controlled by bending. Check it out in the video below.

Since there are quite a few companies working on this, it seems likely that one will try to be first to market in 2013. There are rumors that the next model of Samsung's Galaxy will feature a bendable HD display. We'll find out much more about this at the , scheduled for next week. Stay tuned for updates.

Cameras and phones have been married for about a decade (they , previously). In that time, the relationship has been constantly improving in terms of specs, which has led to higher-quality photographs.

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The 11 whales, who sometimes appeared to be panicking as they fought for air, created a worldwide sensation as news and a video about their plight spread.

The mammals, which likely included two adults and several younger ones, were first spotted by a local Inuit hunter on Tuesday.

Residents from the nearby Inuit community of Inukjuak in northern Quebec had planned to widen the hole. But the whales were gone when they arrived at the site on Thursday morning, according to The Globe and Mail newspaper.

One resident, Johnny Williams, told the paper that the ice likely broke up from the shifting winds, allowing the creatures to swim to freedom.

The community's mayor had asked for an ice breaker and other assistance from the Canadian government. Experts from Canada's fisheries and oceans department were dispatched to the area.

(Reporting By Russ Blinch; Editing by Xavier Briand)

The two sides were in Addis Ababa negotiating the implementation of a safe demilitarized border zone, which called on both Juba and Khartoum to withdraw their armies at least 6 miles (10 kilometers) from the contested border region.

South Sudan broke away from Sudan in 2011 after an independence vote under a 2005 peace treaty that ended decades of war but disputes remain over their common border and sharing of oil revenues.

A key sticking point has been the demilitarization of a contested 14-mile (23-kilometer)strip of land bordering Sudan's Darfur and South Sudan's Northern Bahr el Ghazal states.

"Each government has its own understanding of the scope of the 14-mile area," South Sudan's negotiating team said in a statement, which goes on to call Sudan's position "intractable."

Earlier this week, South Sudan's negotiating team claimed South Sudan had taken a step toward implementing the border security agreements by withdrawing its own forces from the disputed border.

However South Sudan's Military spokesman Col. Philip Aguer said no such withdrawal has taken place.

"(As of) Yesterday (Friday) evening there was no order withdrawal that we have received from any source," said Aguer. "The negotiation is at the political level. We are at the operation level. So far nothing has reached the SPLA general headquarters."

The demilitarized border is the first in a series of issues that may eventually have led to the resumption of South Sudan's oil production and export through pipelines in Sudan. Juba shut down its production last January after accusing Sudan of stealing its oil before it reached export facilities in Port Sudan, on the Red Sea. The shutdown eventually led to open clashes between the two countries' armies and condemnation from the international community.

In September, the two sides signed an agreement on border security and oil production that was expected to end their disputes. But subsequent negotiations have shown both sides are unable to implement the agreements they previously signed. The latest round of talks started on Jan. 14.

According to the statement from the South Sudan negotiating team, Sudan has refused to export southern oil until the border security arrangements are fully implemented. This includes the deployment of more than 800 Ethiopian security forces along the border to monitor the agreement.

Sudan has also frequently accused South Sudan of supporting rebels in Sudan's South Kordofan and Blue Nile states. The rebel groups were part of South Sudan's army during its 21-year civil war with Khartoum. But since the South's independence it maintains it has cut off support for the rebel groups. Khartoum has insisted Juba must stop supporting the rebels before border security arrangements can be implemented. South Sudan however says Khartoum is trying to delay the negotiations by "imposing new conditions" not in previous agreements.

It is unclear when the two sides might meet again to break the nearly four months of deadlock. But according to South Sudan's negotiating team, any chance of implementing the September agreement "will require greater cooperation from Sudan."

Such violence is highly unusual before and during Carnival, which attracts hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors annually.

A police spokesman in the city of Novo Friburgo, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northeast of Rio de Janeiro, says they don't know the motive for the shooting and haven't located the gunman.

A 43-year-old woman and a 20-year-old man were killed.

The shooting happened late Sunday at a popular neighborhood gathering known as a "bloco" party.

While Carnival is still nearly a month away, each weekend leading up to the big bash sees hundreds of warm-up parties take to the streets across the nation.