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A six-month old poses with a machine gun owned by supporters of the Free Syrian Army. The photo was taken inside a house near Idlib in Syria. Rodrigo Abd/AP/Press Association Images

Ireland to take part in 'Friends of Syria' conference

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore is in Tunisia for discussions on how to help the Syrian people.

TÁNAISTE AND MINISTER for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore has travelled to Tunisia today to attend the Arab League-organised International Conference of the Friends of the Syrian People.

He will join leaders from about 70 nations, including the US and the UK. Arab League foreign ministers will also take part in the major conference which aims to find ways to help people in Syria struggling with the regime’s violent and bloody campaign.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she is in Tunis for the first ‘Friends of Syria’ conference as part of “ongoing efforts with our friends, allies and the Syrian opposition to crystallise next steps to halt the slaughter of the Syrian people and pursue a transition to democracy”.

The situation in Syria has deteriorated rapidly since the beginning of this month when the vote on a UN Security Council Resolution failed. Many believe that Russia and China’s veto of the Resolution emboldened President Bashar Assad to escalate his crackdown on dissent in Homs.

The city has been besieged since 4 February.

Gilmore said that the meeting hopes to ease the grave humanitarian situation, as well as lend political support to the Syrian opposition.

He has called for the international community to compel the regime to stop its “appalling and unacceptable” attacks on its own people. The Tánaiste also backed a series of robust economic, political and diplomatic measures.

Escalating violence, rising death toll

Earlier this week, Sunday Times reporter Marie Colvin, French photographer Remi Ochlik and Rami al-Sayed, a  Syrian whose live broadcasts from Homs revealed the gravity of the situation, were all killed in shelling attacks.

Journalists and humanitarian aid agencies’ access to Syria has been extremely limited and the conference aims to pile diplomatic pressure on Damascus to convince it to allow emergency relief to be given to citizens.

Speaking from London yesterday, Clinton said families are suffering in cities under siege and the Syrian nation has been brought to the brink of chaos.

We cannot let the obstruction of a few countries to stop the world community coming to the aid of the Syrian people.

She called for action on three fronts – ensuring greater access to humanitarian relief, increasing pressure on the regime and preparing for a democratic transition.

Neither Russia or China has sent representatives to the meeting.

Yesterday evening, the UN and the Arab League appointed the former UN chief Kofi Annan as a special joint envoy to Syria.

He will act as a high-level representative on the crisis with an aim to bringing an end to all violence and human rights violations. The appointment comes after the publication of a report which details patterns of summary execution, arbitrary arrest, enforced disappearance, torture, sexual violence and other violations of human and children’s rights.

Meanwhile, on the ground in Syria, the Local Coordination Committees has claimed that more than 100 people were killed in a day of violence yesterday.

The death toll includes up to 14 children, it said in a statement posted online last night. The UN believes more than 500 children have been killed since the uprising began last March.

More: French journalist injured in Homs shelling appeals for evacuation>

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    Mute Rob Munnelly
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    Sep 17th 2015, 9:08 PM

    This might be the poorest informed article I’ve read on an Apple release in a while.

    1) Doubling the ram is something just “does” in its phones, almost year on year.

    2) 2GB of ram wasn’t a surprise, it was widely speculated and assumed that would be the case.

    3) Extra ram, on iOS, doesn’t really affect how apps run in the background; it allows larger apps to run more processes in the foreground. That means better graphics in a game because it can load more triangles / drawing processes etc.

    4) Cramming 4gb of ram into something with a mobile chip doesn’t make it as powerful as a laptop, it just has as much ram as one. A lot of these things still run on really crappy processors, and Android is a one-for-all operating system – it’s not built to get the most out of any 1 combination of processor make / speed / model, combined with a ram / speed / make / model. So you can’t really compare them based on the headline number of a single part of it.

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    Mute Byyys
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    Sep 17th 2015, 7:16 PM

    Apple also launched it’s first Android APP called ‘Move to iOS’ yesterday on Google Play as part of the iOS 9 launch…. It got blasted with over 8 thousand 1 star reviews (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apple.movetoios) Most of the reviews are just rants against Apple.

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    Mute John Lawless
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    Sep 17th 2015, 7:24 PM

    I thought Apple Music was the first Apple app released on Android?

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    Mute Byyys
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    Sep 17th 2015, 9:15 PM

    John… Aside from Beats Music for Android, which Apple acquired, this is the company’s first Android APP. Apple didn’t announce ‘Move to iOS’ at WWDC 2015. Instead, the APP was quietly listed on Apple’s What’s new in iOS page the same day.

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    Mute john
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    Sep 17th 2015, 8:22 PM

    My vodafone smart ultra 6 has 2gb Ram and lots of other stuff the iphone 6s has and it only cost me €170!! The only thing it doesnt have is the apple logo on the back :( I’ll just have to live with not being cool!

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    Mute Brendan
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    Sep 17th 2015, 8:54 PM

    Funny enough when I see someone flashing the apple logo on their phone or laptop/tablet I just think knob!!!

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    Mute Paul Lanigan
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    Sep 17th 2015, 11:29 PM

    boulder on your shoulder Brendan

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    Mute Carlin Ite
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    Sep 18th 2015, 7:52 AM

    I have a MacBook Pro. I will never use a windows laptop again.

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    Mute Jonny Lennon
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    Sep 17th 2015, 8:04 PM

    The Journal.. Sponsored by Apple!!!

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    Mute Anon Ymous
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    Sep 18th 2015, 12:46 AM

    I updated my iPhone 5 to iOS9 today. Purely by chance I discovered that, with this new update, it automatically starts your 3 month free trial with Apple Music and – in the small print – after the 3 month trial is up, Apple will start charging your account. I wouldn’t have known this only a friend and I were chatting about Apple Music this evening and I had a quick look at it. I have never signed up for the free trial so am really Annoyed by it.

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    Mute Sean 
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    Sep 18th 2015, 3:29 PM

    Well it hasn’t opted me in on any of my devices not any of my friends I have checked with so you must just be unlucky

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    Mute Jim Rodgers
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    Sep 19th 2015, 12:57 PM

    Surely you seen this nugget of information in the 400 pages of terms and conditions that you read before agreeing to iOS9 ;-)

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    Mute Seamus McSpud
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    Sep 17th 2015, 8:30 PM

    During testing of iOS9 it was discovered that there is an issue for users who use custom Access Point Names (APN) to access their corporate networks.
    This could affect some customers using Vodafone Office Access, Vodafone Data Control or customers who have custom-built APNs.
    The impact it may have is that if a user upgrades to iOS9 they may lose complete data connectivity.

    As a precaution we strongly recommend that any users who use custom APNs, Vodafone Office Access or Vodafone Data Control do not upgrade to iOS9, until further notice. We understand that Apple are working on a fix.

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