US 'offers Israel incentive plan' - BBC News

13 November 2010 Last updated at 18:06 ET The US has offered Israel a package of incentives in exchange for a settlement construction freeze in the West Bank, diplomatic sources say.

Under the reported plan, Israel would stop construction for 90 days in the West Bank but not in East Jerusalem.

Israeli media say the cabinet has been discussing the package.

The settlement row threatens to derail direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, which resumed in the US in September after a break of almost 20 months.

In addition to the 90-day construction freeze, the plan includes a US pledge not to seek any further extension to the moratorium, the diplomatic sources say.

In return, Washington reportedly offers Israel various security guarantees and commits itself to fighting international resolutions critical of Israel.

The US-brokered Middle East peace talks stalled only a few weeks after their resumption in September.

The Palestinians - backed by the Arab League - have pledged not to return to the talks without a full settlement construction freeze, but have given US negotiators until early November to try to break the impasse.

Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967, settling close to 500,000 Jews in more than 100 settlements. They are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.

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Original Apple-1 Goes On Auction Block, Estimated at $160K-$240K - PC Magazine

And you thought the prices for normal Apple systems were high enough (we kid; we kid). An old-school Apple-1 computer is up for auction via Christie's of London, and the estimate for the sale hovers between $160,000 and $240,000.

Winning bidders will receive the system itself, an original 1976 design that's in short supply today-- roughly 50 still exist out of the original lot of 200 that were designed and hand-built by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak himself. The auction also allegedly includes the Apple-1's original packaging, instruction manuals, and a signed letter by company co-cofounder Steve Jobs himself (likely autographed in Jobs' garage, the initial manufacturing location for the Apple-1 design).

This entire setup would have cost an aspiring purchaser $666.66 back in July of 1976, although its miniscule amount of memory—eight kilobytes—wouldn't even be enough to store a single iTunes song by today's standards. An additional cassette interface that comes alongside the to-be-auctioned product would have cost an extra $75 in Apple's beginning years.

For those intending on firing up the Apple-1 for a bit of chess, you might want to save a few extra bucks in the bank account for some additional puchases. That's because the Apple-1 is a wee bit different in its design than Apple products of the present-day. For starters, there's no case, keyboard, or interface to speak of—no included monitor to connect to what's ultimately just a circuit board.

Apple's first PC was unique in that, as an assembled system, users weren't forced to actually go and solder the components onto the board themselves. However, it wasn't until the launch of the Apple-II that a keyboard was integrated into a general case design, paving the way for the more "conventional" computer look that's known today.

Christie's plans to auction the device on November 23.

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Complete: The Nov. 9 testimony of Elizabeth Smart - Salt Lake Tribune

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