JUBA (Reuters) - French oil company Total will partner with U.S. major Exxon Mobil and Kuwait's Kufpec in South Sudan to search for oil in the restive Jonglei state, a senior lawmaker in the African country said.

Sudan's 1983-2005 civil war prevented Total, which has held a majority interest in Block B since the early 1980s, from exploring the 120,000 square-km concession in Jonglei in the east of the country.

Last year South Sudan's government said it was negotiating with Total to split the block to speed up exploration and raise much-needed government revenue.

Henry Odwar, chairman of South Sudan's parliamentary committee on energy and mining, said on Saturday the area was now being broken into blocks B1, B2 and B3.

"Now Total has gone ahead and, with a nudge from the (oil) ministry, engaged certain partners. Exxon Mobil and Kufpec have been brought in to be a partner in Block B1," Odwar told Reuters in an interview.

Another industry insider has told Reuters the deals are yet to be finalised but block B2 is likely to be held by the same partnership of companies. The government is yet to decide on the fate of B3, the source says.

Exxon declined to comment, while Total and Kufpec, Kuwait's state oil exploration arm, could not be immediately reached.

In May, South Sudan restarted oil production in its main oil fields, ending a 16-month shutdown triggered by a dispute with Khartoum over pipeline fees.

South Sudan wants to start exploration in Block B1, B2 and B3 because of declining reserves in its main producing fields where state-owned China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), Malaysia's Petronas and India's ONGC Videsh are active.

Enduring mistrust with between the two Sudans means the South is keen to build alternative pipelines through Kenya or through Ethiopia to Djibouti.

But oil industry analysts say such a project would be hardly viable without new oil discoveries in commercial quantities.

The government is pinning its hopes of fresh finds on blocks B1, B2 and B3 but any exploration plans in the short term would likely be hampered by escalating fighting between the army and rebels led by David Yau Yau.

The new bill, to be introduced on Thursday, would freeze U.S. assets of individual foreign hackers and revoke visas for them and their families, according to a spokeswoman for Representative Mike Rogers, one of the authors of the measure.

Rogers, a Michigan Republican who chairs the House Intelligence Committee and leads cybersecurity efforts in Congress, is introducing the bill together with Democratic Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio and Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.

President Barack Obama will meet with Xi in California this week and plans to tell him that Washington considers Beijing responsible for any cyber attacks launched from Chinese soil and that China must abide by international "rules of the road" on cybersecurity.

China has consistently denied U.S. accusations of cyber hacking and has insisted it is more a victim than a perpetrator.

The White House declined to specify what, if any, punitive measures the United States might take if Xi refuses to cooperate and the cyber threats persist.

"Cyber hackers from nation-states like China and Russia have been aggressively targeting U.S. markets, stealing valuable intellectual property, and then repurposing it and selling it as their own," Rogers' office said.

The new bill, the text of which has not yet been released, will be the second such legislation taken up by Congress after a group of senators introduced the Deter Cyber Theft Act last month.

That Senate bill focuses on tracking nations that engage in economic or industrial cyber espionage and blocking imports of products containing stolen U.S. technology, among other things. It was introduced by Democrats Carl Levin of Michigan and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, and Republicans John McCain of Arizona and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.

The House bill will focus on identifying individual hackers instead of companies or products, to make their names public and force them to face consequences, said Kelsey Knight, spokeswoman for Rogers.

Both bills are expected to face a challenge in Congress this year. A divided Congress has not approved much legislation in recent years, while it has been consumed by partisan fiscal battles.

The House earlier this year passed another cybersecurity bill co-authored by Rogers, which is meant to ease sharing of cyber threat data between companies and the government. Senators are working on their own version of information-sharing legislation.

(Reporting by Alina Selyukh; Editing by Christopher Wilson)

While upper income households continued to set the pace, confidence also began to improve among middle and lower income households in the latter part of the month. Wealthier households are more likely to be invested in equities and reap the benefits of this year's sharp stock market rally.

The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan's final reading on the overall index on consumer sentiment rose to 84.5 from 76.4 in April.

It was the highest level since July 2007. The report topped expectations for 83.7, which was May's preliminary figure earlier in the month.

The barometer of current economic conditions jumped to its highest level since August 2007 at 98.0 from 89.9, while the gauge of consumer expectations climbed to 75.8 from 67.8.

"The data clearly suggest a faster pace of growth in consumer spending during the year ahead than was anticipated even one month ago," survey director Richard Curtin said in a statement.

The index of buying conditions for durable goods rose to 147 from 137.

Rising stock market and home prices prompted more consumers to report that their finances had recently improved rather than worsened for the first time in five years, the survey said. As well, 58 percent said the economy had improved.

The survey's one-year inflation expectation was unchanged at 3.1 percent, while the survey's five-to-10-year inflation outlook also held steady at 2.9 percent.

(Reporting by Leah Schnurr; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

We are extremely concerned, as he could very easily be a criminal who plans to break into our house or a peeping-tom, .

So was the drone operator right when he insisted that it was legal for him to fly above this womans yard?

The question doesnt have an easy answer, and its one that some drone researchers gathered this week in Atlanta for an international conference on unmanned aircraft are grappling with.

Paul Voss, an engineer at Smith College who entered the drone field through his work developing the worlds smallest altitude-controlled meteorological balloons, gave a talk at the conference Wednesday titled The Case for Protecting Privacy and Property Rights in the Lowermost Reaches of the Atmosphere. He argued that the drone community should be proactive in addressing privacy concerns now, before the number of drones in flight skyrockets when regulations are eased in the next few years.

At the beginning of his talk, Voss showed a photo of a drone hovering outside the second-floor window of a home, and asked the class, How many of you think this is public airspace? Only one person raised his hand.

Voss thinks that one student is probably right, though it's a legal gray area. The Supreme Court ruled in 1946 that the air above the minimum safe altitude of flight is a public highway and not subject to trespassing laws. The ruling reversed a lower courts judgment in favor of a chicken farmer who lost 150 chickens due to fighter planes flying less than 100 feet over his roof on their way to a local airbase. (The chickens were so scared by the thunderous noise that they threw themselves against the wall and killed themselves.)

The court did, however, say that homeowners should have exclusive control of the immediate reaches of the enveloping atmosphere so that they can build homes, plant trees and erect fences, for example. Its unclear how many feet in the air, exactly, that extends to, as Justice William O. Douglas did not go into detail in the opinion.

Thats been the courts final word, and the ruling suggests that drones can fly quite close above peoples property and be on safe legal ground.

But the bigger threat to privacy is less likely to come from nosy neighbors with tiny camera-equipped model aircraft than from well-funded law enforcement agencies or businesses that can afford to launch sophisticated drones with high-power cameras.

Brandon Stark, a drone researcher at the University of California, Merced, told the scientists at a workshop Tuesday that smaller drones are not yet sophisticated enough to merit privacy advocates concerns about spying. If youre flying [a small drone] 100 feet into the sky, youre lucky to see a tree. Actually spying on people is fairly difficult and fairly expensive, he said.

Those who can actually afford the most powerful drones are likely to be law enforcement agencies with grants from the federal government, or businesses hoping to turn a profit. That could mean a big expansion in the ability of police to gather evidence and detect crime. A 1989 Supreme Court ruling held that police can use images from manned aircraft to aid their investigations without first obtaining a warrant. In that case, a sheriff discovered a man was growing marijuana in a greenhouse by sending a helicopter to fly overhead at just 400 feet without first having to prove to a judge he had good reason to search his home.

Privacy advocates are concerned that drones will take police power to another level, since drones could in theory hover around an area continuously, surveying from the skies and reporting any suspicious activity.

Drones are tightly regulated right now by the Federal Aviation Association, which prohibits people from using them in any commercial endeavor and requires public institutions to apply for authorization to use them. (Hobbyists can fly small drones as long as they're within sight at all times and stay under 400 feet.)

But thats all expected to change in 2015, when the agency is required by Congress to open up the skies to commercial uses of drones and attempt to integrate unmanned and manned aircraft. The agency estimates that nearly 10,000 new drones will be in flight in just the first few years after the commercial ban is lifted.

Its unclear whether the FAA will delve into any of the privacy issues when it issues its regulations on unmanned aircraft. Ted Wierzbanowski, a retired Air Force colonel who chaired a committee that made recommendations to the FAA on how to regulate small drones, said he believes the FAA should focus on safety, not privacy, in its regulations. Someone else in the government should have to worry about privacy issues. Who that is, I dont know, he said.

Amie Stepanovich, director of the Domestic Surveillance Project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said her organization is petitioning the FAA to require a publicly accessible registry of droneswhere theyre flying, who is flying them, and what sort of data they are collectingso that concerned citizens can look up their home and see who might be watching it.

Congress, meanwhile, has shown some willingness to step in, with some Republican representatives working on a bill that would limit the polices ability to use drones without first obtaining a warrant.

Another possibility is that much of the privacy battles will be fought at the local level, with each state developing standards for how law enforcement can use drones and how to mediate disputes among neighbors who use drones. Dozens of states have introduced legislation just this year to limit the ways in which police departments can use drones.

The attacks come as the country is experiencing its most sustained bout of violence since the 2011 U.S. military withdrawal. More than 450 people have been killed since the start of May.

The deadliest bombing struck the northwestern Sunni neighborhood of Ghazaliyah, where a roadside bomb and car bomb exploded near a market, killing 10 people and wounding 25, police said.

Another car bomb exploded in the mixed Sunni-Shiite Jihad neighborhood, killing seven and wounding 18, officials said.

That southwestern neighborhood was one of the earliest flashpoints in Baghdad's descent into sectarian bloodshed in the years following the 2003 U.S. led invasion. It housed mainly Sunni civil servants and security officials under Saddam Hussein's regime, though many Shiites now live there too.

Many of Jihad's Sunni residents earlier this year received threatening leaflets from a Shiite militant group warning them to leave. The group, the Mukhtar Army, is not known to have carried out car bombings in the past.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Car bombings in civilian areas are often the work of al-Qaida's Iraq arm, which aims to undermine faith in the Shiite-led government.

Hospital officials confirmed the casualties. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

Earlier Wednesday, a senior member of an Iraqi Shiite militia that once fought the U.S. military warned that Iraq is heading toward widespread sectarian bloodletting similar to the kind that once pushed the country to the brink of civil war.

The head of the political bureau of the Asaib Ahl al-Haq group, Adnan Faihan, also said the militia is preparing to defend itself, but denied the group's involvement in a spate of attacks targeting Iraq's Sunni Arab minority.

Iraq has been wracked by a wave of the most sustained violence the country has seen since American troops left in late 2011. The bloodshed, which includes coordinated car bombings blamed on Sunni militants as well as a string of attacks on Sunni mosques, is raising fears that Iraq is slipping back toward all-out sectarian fighting like that which nearly tore the country apart at its peak in 2006 and 2007.

"We have major concerns. Because what is going on now is the same that led to what happened in 2006," Faihan told The Associated Press. "We are ready for it and we are ready to protect our people."

Faihan made the comments on the sidelines of a press conference it held in Baghdad under heavy guard by camouflage-clad militia members.

During the event, Faihan distanced the group from recent attacks against Sunnis, saying such allegations were the result of a misleading defamation campaign.

He railed against what he called a Turkish-Qatari agenda to create sectarian strife again and to divide Iraq a reference to Sunni countries many Shiites accuse of backing members of Iraq's Sunni community who have been holding months of protests against the Shiite-led government.

Years ago, Asaib Ahl al-Haq or the Band of the Righteous broke away from radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's political bloc and has been trying to morph into a legitimate political movement.

It said in late 2011 it was moving away from armed struggle after U.S. forces left but it has not handed over its weapons. It and the Hezbollah Brigades were among a group of Shiite militias backed by Iran that carried out lethal attacks against U.S. bases in the summer of 2011.

Faihan on Wednesday also urged the Shiite faithful to defend the Sayida Zeinab shrine in Syria. The holy site outside Damascus has been a rallying point for foreign Shiite militants fighting alongside government troops loyal to President Bashar Assad, whose Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

"Our stance is ... not to interfere in others' internal affairs. But regarding Sayida Zeinab shrine, we've called on Muslims to go and protect it because any attack on the shrine will lead to bloody events in the region. So protecting this shrine is a must," he said.

Also on Wednesday, Iraqi officials raised the death toll from attacks the previous day that shook Baghdad and towns north of the capital to 28.

Police said the deadliest of Tuesday's attacks struck the southern Dora neighborhood, where back-to-back bombings killed nine people and wounded 10. Bombs in the eastern neighborhood of Sadr City and in the northern Shaab area killed 12 and wounded 33.

Blasts and shootings in Tarmiyah and Mosul killed seven other people.

Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the media.

___

Associated Press writers Adam Schreck and Sinan Salaheddin contributed.

(Reuters) - An Idaho man who admitted to breaking into a Boise zoo last year and killing a monkey was sentenced to seven years in prison on Thursday, court records show.

Michael Watkins, 22, of Weiser, Idaho, in March pleaded guilty to attempted grand theft, a felony, and misdemeanor animal cruelty stemming from the break-in and beating death of the monkey at Zoo Boise in November.

The primate was one of the zoo's two Patas monkeys, ground-dwelling animals from Africa that stand more than 2 feet tall and weigh about 35 pounds. They are rare in zoos but not endangered in the wild.

The case shook officials at the zoo and triggered an outpouring of sympathy and donations from animal lovers worldwide.

Watkins scaled the security fence at Zoo Boise in the pre-dawn hours of November 17 and attempted to steal the monkey, which bit him, police said. Watkins then kicked and hit the animal, severely wounding it, according to police. The monkey later died of blunt force trauma, zoo officials said.

Zoo Boise Director Steve Burns said on Thursday the sentencing of Watkins closed a particularly devastating chapter for the facility.

"We're moving on," he said. "The court has done its job and we're continuing to do our job."

In the days after the death, zoo staff sought to boost the spirits of the companion-less Patas monkey and considered shipping it to another zoo with primates since they are exceedingly social, Burns said.

Instead, Zoo Boise in December gained two female Patas monkeys donated by the Rosamund Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, New York.

News about the monkey's death brought donations from across the United States and overseas, allowing the zoo to begin construction on Monday of a $250,000 exhibit for the three Patas monkeys, Burns said.

(Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Bill Trott)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East on May 26, 2013.Credit: AFP/Getty Images

The winter collection shown Sunday drew inspiration from Byzantine religious art and classic couture. Nino Rota's slightly disturbing music composed for his friend's movies provided a soundtrack for the show.

The show opened with a series of dresses in mosaic patterned silk, dripping with encrusted jewels and at times depicting an iconic image of a saint. Some of the outfits came with irreverent mini-bloomers.

To accessorize these already ornate outfits, the models wore a gilded crown, necklaces featuring a large Byzantine cross, heavy pendant earrings and velvet pumps with a thick jewel-encrusted heel.

Then came the couture look. This evoked fancy ladies in demure sling backs and hair pulled back a la Princess Grace, wearing melange white and gray tweed suits with fitted jacket and flared skirt, or simple short sleeved sheath dress.

Next followed a series of black silk dresses interspersed with lace, which could reference either a Sicilian widow's wardrobe (Sicily is the designing duos trademark inspiration) or sophisticated cocktail hour attire, or even priestly garb.

The same outfits came in papal? white or cardinal? red, both liturgical colors much in vogue at the moment as cardinals prepare to gather in Rome to elect a new pope.

No matter the color, the outfits were heavily bejeweled, and at times came with the cheeky bloomers.

The newly released study shows that about two out of three Americans say weather in the country has worsened over the past several years, with only one in 10 saying the weather has been improving.

Americans also have strong views about the link between .

Nearly 50 percent of the population believes global warming made thethat plagued the Midwestand the Great Plains last year more severe. Similarly, 46 percent of Americans believe climate change exacerbated the effects of Superstorm Sandy, which battered the Northeast in October 2012. []

"Americans are continuing to connect the dots between climate change and extreme weather in the United States," said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. "They're associating climate change with some of the major events that we experienced last year, like the ongoing drought."

Half of Americans also believe global warming was to blame for last year's record-breaking temperatures. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration named 2012 the , with every contiguous U.S. state registering above-average annual temperatures for the year.

Furthermore, 85 percent of Americans said they personally experienced one or more types of extreme weather in the past year, ranging from extreme heat (51 percent) to extreme high winds (60 percent).

The number of Americans who were significantly harmed by extreme weather events in the past year increased to about 37 percent up 4 to 5 percentage points since 2012, Leiserowitz told LiveScience.

"That's quite a significant number," he said. "It shows just how dramatic these extreme weather events have been."

And concern about the potentialdoes not appear to be dissipating. More than half of Americans (54 percent) believe extreme weather is "very" or "somewhat likely" to cause a natural disaster in their local area in the coming year.

The new report, titled "Extreme Weather and Climate Change in the American Mind," is based on a nationally representative survey jointly conducted by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication in New Haven, Conn., and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication in Fairfax, Va.

For the study, 1,045 participants over age 18 were interviewed between April 8 and April 15. The researchers report a 95 percent confidence level, with a total average margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. This means that if the survey were conducted 100 times, the results would fall within 3 percentage points above or below the data collected in 95 of the 100 surveys.

The study was funded by the Surdna Foundation, the 11th Hour Project, the Grantham Foundation and the V.K. Rasmussen Foundation.

Follow Denise Chow on Twitter . Follow LiveScience , & . Original article on.