After keeping the world's most powerful supercomputer to themselves for a year, government researchers showed off the $110 million wonder and said it might help save the world from nuclear war.
With the ability to perform 12.3 trillion calculations a second, the supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory mainly will be used to simulate how the nation's aging nuclear weapons arsenal would function if launched.
Those simulations must be as precise as possible because the United States suspended underground nuclear tests in 1992.
John Gordon, the Department of Energy's under secretary for nuclear security, called the supercomputer the "key to the country's mission of maintaining the stockpile" and assuring nuclear deterrence.
The supercomputer known as ASCI White has a mind-boggling amount of other uses, say researchers who use it.
It can store the equivalent of 300 million books, or six Libraries of Congress.
It has 8,192 microprocessors, housed in a series of black refrigerator-sized boxes linked together by 83 miles of wiring in a room the size of two basketball courts.
ASCI White was designed for the government by IBM Corp., which delivered it to Livermore last year in 28 tractor-trailers.
The mammoth computer is 1,000 times more powerful than Deep Blue, which defeated chess grand master Garry Kasparov in 1997.
The government says that to certify the nuclear arsenal with full confidence, it needs a supercomputer that is 10 times as powerful as ASCI White by 2004.
Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah has written to U.S.
giving his country's "sincere condolences and sympathy" for the September 11 attacks.
In the two-page letter, he would never forget the carnage and suffering caused by the terrorist attacks and Saudi Arabia is also prepared to do its "utmost" to combat terrorism.
that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens.
The Chinese government has ordered a thorough investigation into an outbreak of mass food poisoning in the city of Nanjing that has killed several people and sickened hundreds more.
The wonders of the ancient world don't give up their secrets easily.
But the most advanced modern technology is being put to use in Egypt about the most advanced ancient engineering Egypt's Great Pyramid.
The National Geographic Society, using the same kind of robot used to search for survivors in the ruins of the World Trade Center, is trying to solve a mystery that lies deep in the bowels of the 4,500-year-old Great Pyramid of Giza.
The leaders of Japan and North Korea have completed the first session of an historic meeting raising hopes of a breakthrough after more than five decades of tense relations.
their two nations would resume talks on establishing diplomatic ties, Japan's NHK public broadcaster said.
The head of the U.N. weapons inspection team met with an Iraqi delegation in what a Baghdad official called "useful and fruitful" discussions on the return of weapons inspectors.
Both sides agreed to meet again to "finalize the practical arrangement," Iraqi ambassador Saeed Hasan said.
Last February, the government decided to adopt clipper as the new federal information processing standard for data encryption.
It is now used in civilian government communications.
The problem, says Stephen Walker, is that the technology is being introduced without legislation or legal guidelines.
That, he says, could give the executive branch the ability to establish the rules under which key escrow encryption can be applied without any constraints from the Congress or from the judiciary.
Developed by the National Security Agency, the algorithm, that is the mathematical program the chip uses, is a secret known only by the people within the agency.
Some critics say outside experts should be allowed to examine it.
David Johnson says that as the national information infrastructure begins to take shape, it is more and more evident that the vast amount of valuable information it will carry will have to be shielded from wrongdoers and hackers.
Computer and communication specialists understand the importance of ensuring privacy and security on the electronic highway, he says, but clipper may not be the best way to achieve this goal.
"It's not clear at all that the clipper chip will remain secure.
It's not clear how foreign governments will relate to the clipper chip.
And it's also not clear that the standard can be implemented in a way that is effective and preserves flexible design for communications systems.
So the industry would rather be left on its own to develop strong encryption and security devices that will make people comfortable with communications on the network."
There are several other potential problems with clipper.
Recently a researcher for Bell Laboratories uncovered a flaw in the chip that would allow an experienced user to bypass its security function.
But the government insists it will continue to improve the encryption technology.
The Clinton administration is urging private telephone and computer companies to adopt the technology.
By making clipper the industry standard, the government hopes that only a tiny fraction of manufacturers would adopt other encryption systems or try to defeat the clipper.
Cryptologist Stephen Walker says right now, not too many people buy it, because it's an expensive piece of equipment.
"The issue of it just being a hardware expense is a serious impediment.
A lot of people like software encryption.
They like to embed the ability to do encryption right within the software.
Software encryption is very cheap, essentially free once you've bought the product.
Hardware requires this other board or token or something, which can't be less than 50 or 75 bucks and therefore will not be widely used in the U.S. or internationally."
Recently, a software engineer from Boulder, Colorado, wrote a cryptography program for computer data and electronic mail.
He called it PGP, "pretty good privacy," and decided to give it away.
PGP was placed on the InterNet, the international computer network, and within days thousands of people had a free and seemingly unbreakable code.
Professor Galertner says if clipper is not implemented in a very short time all communication on the information highway will be immune to lawful interception.
And in a world threatened by international organized crime, terrorism, and rogue governments, he says that would be folly.
That is, the government's ability to place wiretaps is unquestionably going to be seriously diminished by new technology.
Clipper is an attempt to preserve at least some of that capacity."
U.S. companies dominate the world market for computer software.
According to the Software Publishers Association, exports of personal computer applications totaled about $3 billion last year.
As the global market for data security grows, says Stephen Walker, the stakes will be in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
"The interest in encryption will grow as our dependence on international communications increases.
A couple years ago it was just a piece of technology that nobody really cared about.
Now more and more people are interested.
I think we're going to see more and more cryptography used.
I think the whole clipper initiative on the part of the government is an attempt to retain an ability they've had in the past in the face of growing interest in encryption."
Most of the people involved in the discussion agree that there is a legitimate area in which the government needs to retain the right to intercept communications.
Clipper defenders argue that if the chip sells well, within a few years very few people will recall that the government can break into these devices.
David Johnson says clipper may or may not become the standard for the industry, but the basic policy question that it raises, namely privacy versus safety, will continue to be debated for some time.
Just over a week before the Beijing Olympics, a militant Islamic group's claims of responsibility for bombings in China have fueled unease about security.
The government has assured its people and the Olympic community that heavy security will ensure a secure games.
But its clampdown has smothered a broad array of groups, many with grievances against the government but without a history of violence.
Among the potential troublemakers Chinese security specialists have identified are Tibetan separatists, who staged occasionally violent protests last spring;
members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement and unemployed workers.
Stirring the latest concerns were videotaped threats purporting to be from an Islamic militant group.
They surfaced last week in the name of the Turkistan Islamic Party a group Chinese and Western terrorism experts say is an offshoot of a secessionist group from China's Central Asian frontier with ties to al-Qaida.
In it, hooded men stood in camouflage fatigues with Kalashnikovs and claimed responsibility for explosions in four cities in Western China in recent months, including two bus bombings last week in Kunming city that authorities said killed two people and injured 14.
Buoyed by a new Gallup daily tracking poll showing Barack Obama ahead by a 9-point margin, the latest CNN poll of polls suggests the Illinois senator has doubled his lead over John McCain.
Obama now holds a 6-point lead in CNN's average of national polls, 45 percent to 39 percent, up from the 3-point margin over McCain the Democratic presidential candidate held at the end of last week. The results suggest Obama's trip —
¡°There are early indications that Obama has received a boost from his trip to Europe and the Middle East,¡± said CNN Senior Political Researcher Alan Silverleib.
¡°The key question, however, is whether or not Obama has eroded McCain¡¯s advantage on the issues of national security and foreign policy.
If McCain loses that edge, his road to victory in November will become much tougher.
a sign of just how volatile national surveys are in the summer months with the majority of the American public yet to be focused on the race for the White House.
In addition to the Gallup poll and the Fox News poll, the CNN poll of polls also included a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showing Obama with a 6-point advantage.
(CNN) He armors himself, keeps other people guessing and likes to wear a mask.
Though in his case the armor and mask are metaphorical, the 34-year-old "Dark Knight" star likes to keep his personal life as shadowy as a superhero's back story.
He's been known to keep a low profile "You will never see me at a party," he told the Times of London and delights in concocting stories about his life.
"I make up [things]," he told Details magazine earlier this year. "Absolutely. I'm an actor I'm not a politician.
I always kick myself when I talk too much about family, or personal things. I'll enjoy chatting now and then later I'll regret it.
But with the explosive impact of "The Dark Knight" the film has set box office records in the 10 days since its release, becoming the fastest film to reach the $300 million mark in history and the forthcoming release of the fourth "Terminator," which will star Bale, he may find his privacy limited.
Already there are signs that Bale has made the jump from actor to movie star.
Last week, news of an alleged hotel-room tussle between the actor, his mother and his sister made headlines around the world.
Bale, who has denied the allegations, described the incident as "a deeply personal matter" and asked the media to "respect my privacy in the matter" at a press conference.
Senior Iraqi government officials will meet with the International Olympic Committee on Tuesday to try to salvage the country's participation in the Beijing Games.
A delegation led by government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh will discuss reinstating the National Olympic Committee, which was dissolved by the Baghdad government in May, and led to the IOC suspending Iraq from the Olympics for political interference.
Iraq also has verbally committed to a compromise by holding free elections to its national committee under IOC observation.
"Our expectation and this has been mad is that they come to Lausanne to confirm this pledge in person," IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said late Monday.
The talks will come 24 hours before a Wednesday deadline to submit competitors' names for the athletics events and 10 days before the opening ceremony in Beijing.
A breakthrough in Tuesday's talks would allow two Iraqi track and field athletes to compete in athletics events.
Five other hopefuls in archery, judo, rowing and weightlifting lost their chance to compete when a deadline to select teams for other sports passed Wednesday with no break in the stalemate.
LONDON, England (CNN) From Dallas, Texas to Dabancheng, China, energy companies are staking fortunes on harnessing wind power.
Several Texan transmission companies announced Monday they were forming a consortium to invest in the $5 billion cost of building new power lines to take advantage of the state's vast wind power.
The consortium, comprised of existing transmission operators, includes Dallas-based Oncor, the state's largest power delivery company, Electric Transmission Texas (ETT) and units of American Electric Power Co. among others.
Those new lines, dubbed by Oncor as a "renewable energy superhighway," will accommodate about 18,500 megawatts of wind generation by 2012 enough energy to power 4 million homes.
The companies are hoping to take advantage of a landmark ruling on Friday that gave Texas preliminary approval for a $4.9 billion plan to build transmission lines to carry wind power from West Texas to urban areas.
Meanwhile, China could well be on its way to blowing the U.S. out of the water when it comes to harnessing wind energy.
Like their American counterparts, Chinese tycoons are increasingly directing their investment into renewable power.
Zhu Yuguo, ranks at 102 on the Forbes China Rich List, with a personal fortune of 5.71 billion Yuan and has invested heavily in the wind power industry.
China's wind generation has increased by more than 100 percent per year since 2005 and 20 per cent of the power supply to the venues of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games will come from wind generators, according to the official state agency, Xinhua.
It was initially hoped the country would generate 5 gigawatts of wind by 2010, but that goal was met three years early in 2007.
The 2010 goal has now been revised to 10 gigawatts but experts say this could well hit 20 gigawatts.
The Guanting Wind Farm in Beijing has installed capacity of 64.5 megawatts and has supplied 35 million kilowatts of electricity to Beijing so far.
(CNN) A weakened Typhoon Fung-Wong neared the Taiwan Strait Monday afternoon after whipping the island with powerful winds and heavy rain, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center reported.
Torrential rains inundated parts of Taiwan, dropping up to 36 inches (900 mm) in some areas, but the island's rugged landscape had taken much of the storm's punch.
The typhoon is expected to make a second landfall in southeastern China early Tuesday, coming ashore in China's Fujian Province, south of the city of Fuzhou, as a Category 1 storm with winds of at least 75 mph.
Fujian authorities evacuated about 275,000 people on Sunday as the storm approached, Xinhua reported.
More than 50,000 fishing boats returned to harbor.
Government offices and schools in Taiwan closed ahead of the storm's landfall early Monday, authorities said, according to Taiwan's Central News Agency.
Local stock and foreign exchange markets also closed for the day.
Officials suspended ferry service linking Taiwan and the Chinese mainland, according to China's Xinhua news service.
Fung-Wong delivered a glancing, but powerful blow to the northern Philippines as it passed on Sunday.
Two people were reported missing by authorities, the Philippines News Agency reported Monday.
Officials said about 2,000 families were affected by storm-related flooding.
A Melbourne-bound Qantas jet was forced to return to Adelaide's airport Monday night after a door above the one of the wheels failed to close, Australian media reported Tuesday.
Civil Aviation Safety Authority spokesman Peter Gibson told The Daily Telegraph the aircraft's wheels came up after takeoff but the undercarriage door would not retract a malfunction he deemed on the "lower end" of the danger scale.
"This aircraft was not in danger at any stage it was more of an aerodynamics issue than anything else because it would have created a lot of drag," Gibson told the newspaper.
"The pilot would have had to have made a judgment call, like he was trained to do, and he decided to bring the flight back to Adelaide, which was the safer option.
Passenger Rocco Russo told Australian Broadcasting Corp. Radio that he heard a rattling noise about 10 minutes after the plane took off. Qantas did not respond to multiple phone calls and an e-mail seeking comment early Tuesday morning.
One passenger, Gunter Kubler of South Africa, told The Telegraph he was too scared to fly to Melbourne after the incident.
"It was absolute chaos on the plane and then they had to turn it around and bring it back to Adelaide," he said. "They had to bring in another plane to fly people back, but I don't trust them so I will take a bus or a train to Melbourne.
The incident comes just three days after a Qantas jumbo jet made an emergency landing in the Philippines with a hole the size a small car in its fuselage.
Thousands of mourners were joined Monday by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the funerals of victims killed in Sunday's double bombing in Istanbul.
Seventeen people were killed and at least 154 injured, according to the Anadolu news agency, when the bombs went off close to each other and only minutes apart.
"Terrorism is a phenomenon that does not have a religion, people, homeland or race," Erdogan said.
Another source of tension in Turkey is between secular Turks suspicious of the government, led by the Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party, or AKP.
Less than two weeks ago, 86 people mostly critics of the government were indicted on charges of being involved with an alleged terror group called Ergenekon, which aims to topple the Turkish government.
Istanbul Gov. Muammer Guler called the blasts "an act of terror," and said the devices were placed 15 meters (49 feet) from each other.
Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has been offered a vice presidency position in the country's government, according to a source close to negotiations between the two sides.
Under the deal, Mugabe would remain in power, as would the two existing vice presidents.
The move has deadlocked power-sharing talks between the two sides, according to a source close to the negotiations.
MDC officials have publicly stated they will not accept a Mugabe-led government because they say Tsvangirai won the most votes in the March 29 presidential election.
Negotiators for the MDC will restart talks with Mugabe's ZANU-PF on Saturday, the source said.
LONDON, England (CNN) Singer Amy Winehouse was rushed to a London hospital Monday night, said the London Ambulance Service and her California publicist, Tracey Miller.
"London Ambulance Service answered a call 8:40 p.m. this evening to an address in NW1 following reports of an adult female taken unwell," the service said. "We sent an ambulance and a fast response car. The patient was taken to hospital.
Winehouse's spokesman in London, Chris Goodman, told the British Press Association that he has not been told what was wrong with the 24-year-old singer, who is well known for her song "Rehab," describing the singer's reluctance to enter a clinic.
Miller said the singer suffered a reaction from medication she was taking at home.
Doctors will be monitoring her overnight and will likely release her Tuesday, Miller said.
She would not identify the medication.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Four female suicide bombers and a gunman killed at least 70 people and wounded almost 300 others during a string of attacks in central Baghdad and Kirkuk on Monday, officials said.
In Baghdad, three suicide bombers detonated their explosives in three locations within 30 minutes of each other.
The attacks killed at least 32 people and wounded 102 others, most of them Shiite pilgrims, an Interior Ministry official said.
It was the second day attackers have targeted Shiite pilgrims taking part in an annual march to one of the Shiites' holiest shrines.
On Sunday afternoon, seven pilgrims were gunned down in a town south of Baghdad.
About 150 miles north of the capital, another suicide bomber ran into a crowd of protesters at a Kurdish political rally, a police official said.
After she detonated the explosives she was carrying, gunmen began firing into the crowd from different directions, the official said.
The attack killed at least 38 people and wounded 178 others, the official said.
A bomb was discovered in a parked car near the site of the attack.
It was destroyed in a controlled explosion by Iraqi security forces, an Interior Ministry official said.
Thousands of Kurds had gathered in central Kirkuk to protest an election law that the Iraqi parliament passed last week, despite opposition from the Iraqi presidency council.
The Kurds, who have had intense political disputes with Arabs and Turkmen, oppose any power-sharing arrangement that would not reflect what they believe is their majority.
They also want a referendum asking Kirkuk residents whether they want to be part of the Kurdish Regional Government.
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(CNN) Both John McCain and Barack Obama say equal opportunity should not be based on quotas, but neither side has said how to reach equality without them.
Obama accused McCain on Sunday of flip-flopping on affirmative action after McCain said he supports a measure in Arizona that would dismantle race- and gender-based preference programs.
Obama pointed to McCain's past opposition to similar proposals, like one in Arizona in 1998 that McCain called "divisive.
But McCain didn't say at the time that he opposed the measure.
In an interview broadcast Sunday on ABC's "This Week," host George Stephanopoulos asked McCain if he supports a referendum on the ballot in Arizona "that would do away with affirmative action.
McCain said he backed the measure, which is described by supporters as something that will give "the people of Arizona the opportunity to end preferential treatment based on race, sex, ethnicity or national origin by state or local governments.
McCain said he had not seen the details of the proposal, "but I've always opposed quotas."
Obama on Sunday said equal opportunity can't be achieved by quotas alone, but must also factor in other variables.
Obama said he does not see affirmative action as a long-term solution to the country's race problems.
Obama said he agreed with McCain's comments from 10 years ago when he described certain initiatives to do away with affirmative action as divisive.
Obama said he was "disappointed ... that John McCain flipped and changed his position. "
Greek police on Friday evacuated more than 2,000 European vacationers from a strip of holiday resorts on Rhodes as fierce forest fires swept through the Greek island and thick plumes of smoke choked its most popular hotels.
Authorities said the evacuation was a precaution as fires raged for a fourth day, scorching at least 7,400 acres of lush pine forest on one of the country's most idyllic islands.
"Three hotels were evacuated as a precaution, mainly because smoke from the fire had created an unpleasant atmosphere," said Charlambos Kokkinos, regional governor for
the southern Aegean.
The officials declared southern Rhodes in a state of emergency earlier this week when the fires broke out and quickly swept through the island because of gale force winds.
Dozens of homes were destroyed in Laerma, the worst hit region, state media reported.
France and Italy have sent five water-bombers to assist hundreds of Greek firefighters and volunteers trying to extinguish the blazes.
GENEVA, Switzerland (CNN) African and Caribbean countries stood in the way of a deal Sunday that would end the European Union's long-running "banana war" with Latin American nations at the World Trade Organization.
The deal would benefit banana exporting nations such as Ecuador as well as multinational growers like Chiquita Brands International and Fresh Del Monte Produce.
Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim told reporters late Sunday an agreement had been reached, but his comments clashed with those of African and Caribbean nations that currently benefit from preferential access to the European Union.
The EU has repeatedly been found in violation of global trade rules for favoring banana growers from mostly British and French ex-colonies.
The EU said it would be prepared to cut import charges on Latin American bananas to ¢æ114 ($179) per metric ton, down from ¢æ176 ($277), by 2016, according to the text of the offer which was seen by The Associated Press.
The offer was made at high-level talks in Geneva aimed at sealing a new global free trade pact.
It improves slightly on a similar proposal the EU made earlier this month.
The U.S. has backed Latin American countries on the issue because U.S.-based companies such as Chiquita grow much of their banana crop in South and Central America.
African, Caribbean and Pacific growers, which currently pay lower tariffs when exporting to the EU, want financial compensation before agreeing to the banana deal, which would form part of the seven-years global trade talks known as the Doha round.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's ruling party has claimed a landslide victory in parliamentary elections.
The vote is expected to usher in yet another term for the former Khmer Rouge soldier who has ruled for 23 years.
Official results are expected later in the week.
Opposition leader Sam Rainsy called a midday news conference, demanding the polls be scrapped.
He claimed that some 200,000 registered voters in the capital, where the opposition is strongest, were unable to cast ballots because their names had been left off voter lists.
Qantas Airways said Monday it has appointed the head of its offshoot airline Jetstar, Alan Joyce, as chief executive officer.
Joyce assumed the role of chief executive designate on Monday and will work with Dixon over the next four months to ensure a smooth transition, Qantas chairman Leigh Clifford said.
"Alan is, we believe, the best person to take Qantas forward in what is a very challenging environment," Clifford said in the statement.
Clifford praised Dixon, saying he had led Qantas through numerous challenges.
Joyce has been with the Qantas group since 2000 and worked in senior management roles for defunct domestic carrier Ansett and Ireland's Aer Lingus.
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) Twenty-nine people convicted of various crimes, ranging from murder to being a public nuisance while drunk, were hanged in Iran, state TV said.
Iran's semi-official Fars News Agency reported earlier that 30 people would be put to death.
It was not immediately clear if the last person's life was spared.
The Iranian judiciary's statement said that all 30 were convicted of various crimes, which included: murder, murder in commission of a crime, disturbing public safety and security, being a public nuisance while drunk and being involved in illegal relationships relationships between men and women who are not married to each other.
Kidnapping and using weapons while committing a crime were also among the charges.
The statement also said that 20 of the convicts were convicted of drug and alcohol dealing, armed robbery and smuggling arms.
The judiciary statement said that the convicts had their cases tried by the highest judicial authorities and were found guilty of the charges brought against them.
The verdicts were final with their sentences carried out on Sunday.
The judiciary said the hangings should serve as a warning to those who are contemplating committing such crimes, the agency reported.
The statement also said that several other individuals are currently awaiting trial and their sentences will be carried out as soon as the verdicts are pronounced by the courts.
(CNN) Shigeo Tokuda looks like your average retiree, wearing a classy gray suit and distinguished glasses.
But there is nothing average about this 73-year-old when he steps in front of the camera.
Shigeo Tokuda is a porn star.
From women in their 20's to their 70's, Tokuda romances them all (sometimes more than one at a time).
Tokuda is a genuine leading man in the genre of elderly porn, starring in more than 200 adult videos.
Tokuda (that's his porn name) is so successful, he is a brand.
"I retired and didn't have anything to do," says Tokuda, a former 9 to 5 travel agent. "This is my second life. I don't know how long I can keep living, but I want to enjoy the rest of it.
Tokuda certainly looks like he's enjoying life, saying he's healthier now than he's been in years.
So are sales of his DVD's, primarily among middle-aged and elderly buyers.
"In his generation, Tokuda is a superstar," says Gaichi Kono, an adult video director who has worked with Tokuda.
"He encourages older people to think, I can do this because that old man can do this."
Ruby Productions produces Tokuda's movies and specializes in elderly porn videos.
It's a genre they helped pioneer by accident.
Ryuichi Kadowaki, president of Ruby Productions, says they started producing adult videos with people in their 30's to good sales.
They creeped up to 40 year old actors and they sold even better.
Kadowaki says they went up to actors in their 50's, then 60's, and now they're producing an entire line of adult videos with actors in their 70's.
And their star, says Ruby, is Tokuda.
"To be honest, I don't understand why people are buying these videos," he says. "I think our older customers must feel a sense of security by watching videos with an actor who is in the same generation.
Ruby says it's targeting the elderly audience and considering selling videos in retirement homes.
Ruby also says it's just completed a deal to release some of Tokuda's movies in the U.S.
Japan does have a higher percentage of people over the age of 65 than any country in the world.
Ruby Productions says it's just meeting a demand of an aging Japanese society.
Tokuda says his friends are envious, because he's in a job where he's valued, something many seniors lack.
Tokuda hopes to work until he's 80 or even older.
Giving it his all, he says, until the end.
Spain's Rafael Nadal wrapped up his fifth straight tournament win with a 6-3 6-2 victory over Nicolas Kiefer in the final of the Toronto Masters on Sunday.
It was his 29th straight victory in a run which has seen him beat Federer in the finals of the French Open and Wimbledon.
Federer lost in the first round in Toronto to Frenchman Gilles Simon, who was beaten by Kiefer in the semifinals.
, Nadal could end Federer's reign at the top since February 2004.
Kiefer, ranked 37th, was playing in his first ATP final since 2005, but had not taken a set off Nadal in three previous matches this year.
WASHINGTON (CNN) Only Mexican-grown raw jalapeñ os and raw serrano peppers have been linked to the salmonella outbreak, a spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration said Friday.
Mexican officials said the findings were "premature," even as the FDA issued an advisory stating that a contaminated jalapeñ o pepper originated in Mexico.
Mexico's National Sanitation and Farm Food Quality Service director Enrique Sanchez told The Associated Press that Mexico sent a letter to the United States on Friday "expressing our concern and our most forceful complaint against this decision."
According to AP reports, Sanchez said the FDA "has no scientific proof to make a decision that will harm Mexico enormously.
The latest development came just days after the FDA announced it discovered salmonella on a jalapeñ o imported from Mexico at The Agricola Zarigosa produce distribution center in McAllen, Texas.
The FDA said traceback studies of food eaten by victims who became sick indicate the contaminated jalapeñ o pepper originated in Mexico.
The agency concluded the distribution center was not the source of the outbreak because peppers from a number of clusters never passed through there, said Dr. David Acheson, the agency's director of food safety.
To date, all traceback studies have led to Mexico and peppers grown in the United States have not been connected to the outbreak, he said.
But Mexican Embassy spokesman Ricardo Alday noted that the investigation is ongoing.
"Mexico strongly urges the FDA to abstain from making any further public comment implicating Mexican produce in this outbreak until it has completed its investigation of jalapeñ
If it stays on its present course, it will hit central and eastern Taiwan early Monday, the bureau said.
Late Sunday afternoon, the storm was centered about 180 miles southeast of the coastal city of Hualien in eastern Taiwan, it said.
Rain and wind lashed Hualien on Sunday, triggering a rock slide
in the scenic Taroko Gorge that injured a man, police said.
In Keelung in northern Taiwan, winds whipped up giant waves, and hundreds of fishing boats took shelter in port.
Despite tough traffic restrictions imposed a week ago to help reduce pollution, visibility was a half-mile in parts of the city.
At the opening of the Athletes' Village on Sunday, the complex was invisible from the nearby main Olympic Green.
Pollution levels remain one of the biggest question marks hanging over the games, which begin August 8.
Du blamed the thick haze on a combination of fog and light wind unable to blow away the pollution, but he said pollution levels now are 20 percent lower than one year ago in similar weather conditions.
"Our job is to decrease the pollution as much as possible, but sometimes it is very common to have fog in Beijing at this time," Du said.
Olympic athletes have been trickling into Beijing, but are expected to begin arriving in larger numbers this week.
Some, though, were headed to training sites in South Korea, Japan and other places to avoid the Beijing air until the last possible minute.
"No, it doesn't really look so good, but as I said, yesterday was better, said Gunilla Lindberg, an International Olympic Committee vice president from Sweden who is staying in the Athletes' Village. "The day I arrived, Tuesday, was awful.
Metropolitan areas of India were on high alert Sunday after a wave of synchronized bombs that hit the western Indian city of Ahmedabad killed at least 49 people and wounded more than 114, police reported.
The streets of Ahmedabad were calm, with anxious residents staying indoors and the Indian Army marching through parts of the city to instill a sense of security among residents.
"The army, police and paramilitary forces are patrolling the city, and residents are being very supportive.
Seventeen low intensity blasts went off within a span of 70 minutes Saturday night, all within a 6-mile (10-km) radius.
45 a.m. ET), the death toll had climbed to 49.
The official number of wounded is 114, according to Ahmedabad police, but Raghela said the number of injuries surpassed 200.
The serial blasts occurred barely 24 hours after nine similar explosions rocked Bangalore, known as the Silicon Valley of India.
Two people were killed and six injured in those explosions.
In both cities, bicycles, bags and lunch boxes were repositories for the bombs, authorities said.
CNN) Australian authorities have asked the country's national airline to check every oxygen bottle in its fleet of Boeing 747s after investigators said an exploding cylinder might have ripped a hole in one of the jumbo jets while it was mid-flight.
The mid-air explosion forced the Qantas flight to make an emergency landing in the Philippines on Friday.
The Civil Aviation Safety Authority asked the airline to check oxygen containers and the brackets that hold them in each of the 30 Boeing 747 that's part of Qantas' fleet, the state news agency said.
The agency thinks an exploding oxygen cylinder caused the rupture on the flight Friday because there were no signs of fire and the bottle had been in the spot that exploded, the Australian Associated Press said.
The flight was on its way from London to Melbourne with 346 passengers on board when the explosion occurred.
The plane lost cabin pressure and altitude.
The crew brought the plane down from 29,000 feet (8,840 meters) to 10,000 feet (3,048 meters) and diverted the aircraft to Manila International Airport in the Philippine where it landed safely.
Oxygen masks were deployed during the emergency.
Passengers said their ears popped because of the plane's rapid descent to a lower altitude.
"There was a big bang," said one passenger. "I knew there was a hole somewhere, but I didn't know what was going on."
A U.S. Transportation Security Administration official, who asked not to be identified because his agency is not leading the probe into the incident, told CNN that a preliminary investigation found no connection to terrorism.
The damage appears to be related to a mechanical issue, based on examination of the aircraft on the ground, the official said.
The official said a TSA representative based in Manila is assisting in the probe.
The National Transportation Safety Board also is sending investigators, and an NTSB spokesman told CNN they also do not suspect terrorism.
BERLIN, Germany (CNN) Two drunken British women went on a rampage on a charter plane, hitting one flight attendant with a bottle of vodka and trying to open a cabin door as the aircraft was cruising over Austria at 10,000 meters (32,800 feet), police said Saturday.
The staff on the flight from Greece to England eventually forced the women back to their seats and the pilot made an emergency in Frankfurt on Thursday, police told The Associated Press, confirming a statement they had issued on Friday.
The identities of the women, aged 26 and 27, were not released, but police said the 26-year-old may be charged with attempted assault and interfering with air traffic.
Both women were released, police said.
The rampage occurred when a flight attendant denied the women alcohol because they were visibly intoxicated, police said.
The 26-year-old took a swipe at a cabin attendant with a bottle of vodka, then attempted to open a cabin door.
"Apparently the 26-year-old wanted to catch some fresh air," the statement said, in an effort to make light of the altercation.
The two women were taken into custody by police at Frankfurt airport and given a breathalyzer test.
After an hour in Frankfurt, the flight continued on to Manchester, England.
ISTANBUL, Turkey (CNN) The death toll from two deadly explosions in Turkey continued to rise early Monday as government officials confirmed 15 deaths and more than 150 injuries.
Istanbul Gov. Muammer Guler called the blasts "an act of terror," and said the devices were placed 15 meters (49 feet) from each other.
The first was a stun grenade that was detonated to draw attention before the second blast went off, he said.
One bomb had been placed in a trash can.
Guler said police have launched an investigation into who is responsible for the blasts.
The blasts happened within 10 minutes of each other in Istanbul's crowded Gungoren community about 10 p.m., Zafer Karakoc, who witnessed the explosions, told CNN Turk.
Dozens of firefighters and paramedics were on the scene, and several bloodied people were driven off in ambulances afterward.
Glass and debris were strewn all over the brick sidewalks, and shop windows were blown out.
A few bodies were covered in blankets as ambulances arrived.
Journalists on the scene reported seeing body parts around the square, which is closed to vehicle traffic and a central place where tourists and residents gather in the evenings.
About 150 people were taken to hospitals, said Hayati Yazici, assistant to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The first blast drew people to the scene for the second explosion, increasing the number of casualties, he said.
Authorities asked residents to evacuate the heavily pedestrian, working class Gungoren neighborhood within an hour of the blast, reporters told CNN.
"This is just the type of neighborhood that ordinary people live in," journalist Andrew Finkel told CNN.
JERUSALEM (CNN) The rabbi who supervises Jerusalem's Western Wall condemned the removal of a prayer note purportedly written by Sen. Barack Obama, saying the action was "sacrilegious.
The U.S. presidential candidate visited the holy site early Thursday and placed a note in the cracks of the wall a custom of visitors.
The note was subsequently removed from the wall, according to the Israeli newspaper, Ma'ariv, which printed what it said were the contents of the prayer.
Ma'ariv said a seminary student gave the note to the newspaper.
Obama's senior strategist Robert Gibbs told CNN, "We haven't confirmed nor denied" that the note is from the Illinois senator.
"This sacrilegious action deserves sharp condemnation and represents a desecration of the holy site," said Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, who supervises the Western Wall, in a statement.
He said notes are supposed to be removed twice a year, on the eve of Jewish New Year and Passover, and placed in a repository under supervision "to keep them hidden from human eyes.
"Notes which are placed in the Western Wall are between the person and his Maker; Heaven forbid that one should read them or use them in any way," Rabinowitz said.
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) Sexually dysfunctional women in the United States are, well, mostly out of luck.
Unlike men, there are no approved drugs to take.
If you go strictly by the rules, the best medical science has to offer is counseling, or a device that applies suction to your clitoris, or physical therapy for your vagina.
While not to diminish these choices, where's that convenient, little blue pill for women?
That's what Joanne wanted to know.
This isn't her real name, but she's a 26-year-old nurse at the Cleveland Clinic who felt no sex drive nothing, nada, zilch for eight years.
When Joanne asked her gynecologist for help, she told her to talk to her psychiatrist.
Her psychiatrist said her antidepressants were to blame they're known to decrease libido in about a third to a half of women, experts say.
"It was just like, well, that's a side effect of the drug. That's just the way it is."
Finally, fate intervened on behalf of Joann's sex life.
Last year, the anti-depressants she was taking stopped working, and her psychiatrist had to switch her to a new one.
But it wasn't perfect, or even close to it.
Probably because of her long-dormant sex drive, Joanne could get sexually excited, but couldn't reach orgasm.
Again, after being shuffled around to various doctors, Joanne ended up with a urogynecologist at the Cleveland Clinic.
Getting help for women's sexual problems is often a long and complicated road.
"This is an area that's highly neglected," says Dr. Sharon Parish, an internist at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine who treats sexually dysfunctional women. "Many primary care doctors have no idea what to do.
So if you want help for your sexual problems, you may have to make suggestions to your doctor.
"I feel like if I hadn't aggressively pursued it, I'd still be stuck in the same spot," Joanne says.
Here are some treatments for sexual dysfunction you can discuss with your doctor.
Impotence drugs such as Viagra, Levitra and Cialis
A woman's biggest hurdle could be finding a doctor who'll prescribe them, since they're approved by the FDA only for men.
Be frank with your doctor.
Ask if he or she is willing to consider prescribing these drugs "off label."
Be clear that you recognize these medicines have not been approved for women, and that you want to know about the risks and benefits.
Testosterone
Testosterone, produced naturally by both men and women, boosts libido.
Synthetic testosterone, however, has been approved only for use with men.
In 2004, the FDA declined to approve a testosterone patch for women, saying it hadn't been thoroughly tested.
As with Viagra and its cousins, if you're interested in possibly trying testosterone, tell your doctor you know it's off label, and you'd like to discuss the benefits and risks for women knowing that not all the risks are fully understood.
3. Arginine
Some doctors suggest using a cream with arginine, an amino acid that's supposed to increase blood flow.
"It's supposed to act like Viagra," says Brewer.
"I saw one patient try it, and it had benefits.
Anti-stress herbs
ashwagandha, astragalus, panax ginseng.
Licorice can also be used for stress, but she says your physician must monitor your potassium levels.
(CNN) When the Roman Emperor Hadrian came to power in 117AD he inherited an empire that was overstretched militarily and creaking at the seams.
One of his first acts was to pull the troops out of Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq, a fact that is sure to resonate with visitors to the British Museum"s superb exhibition "Hadrian:
Empire and Conflict" which opens on 24 July under the imposing classical dome of the Reading Room.
Hadrian was born in Rome to a noble family whose origins lay in Spain.
One of the greatest of Rome's emperors, he consolidated imperial power, was a patron of architecture and travelled extensively across his lands.
The range of exhibits and their rarity means that this exhibition is going to be extremely well-attended.
Visitors will, for example, be the first members of the public anywhere to see a huge head of the emperor that was dug up recently at Sagalassos in central Turkey and would have once crowned a statue that was over five metres high.
"A year ago, this was still lying buried in the ground," says Opper. "It"s proof that Roman history isn't done and dusted;
The exhibition brings together 180 objects, from 31 sources in 11 different countries.
"It hasn't been an easy thing to do," adds Opper.
"Many of these objects leave huge gaps in their home collection and many are extremely delicate. This isn't an exhibition that can travel.
One of my favorite places to be in Europe is atop the Zugspitze the highest point in Germany.
Standing on this 9,700-foot peak, you can't help but marvel at the thought that you are above everyone else in the entire country No. 1 out of 82 million.
From here, facing south, I feel like a maestro conducting a symphony of snow-capped peaks, as the mighty Alps stretch seemingly forever to the right and left.
The Zugspitze also marks the border between Germany and Austria.
Before Europe united, you had to show your passport just to walk across the mountaintop.
Lifts from both countries meet at the top.
As if waging an epic battle of alpine engineering, just a few years after the Austrians built a cable car to their Zugspitze station, the Germans drilled through the mountain in 1931 so that a cogwheel train could deposit nature lovers on a glacier just below their side of the summit.
Today, whether you ascend from the Austrian or German side, you can straddle the border between two great nations while enjoying an incredible view.
Restaurants, shops and telescopes await you at the summit.
Crossing used to be a big deal you'd get your passport stamped at the little blue house and shift your currency from shillings to marks.
While the border formalities are long gone, regional pride still shines here. You'll notice no German or Austrian banners "Freistaat Bayern" and "Land Tirol" only regional ones.
The views are equally breathtaking on either side of the border.
Each summer, workers spread out a 10,500-square-foot reflector over the glacier to try to slow its shrinking due to global warming.
Since metal ski lift towers absorb heat, they too are wrapped in reflective material to try to save the ice.
But a free new phone service called Slydial might make it easier to get through that and other awkward moments without actually having to talk to anyone.
Users call (267) SLY-DIAL from either a cell phone or a landline and are prompted to enter another person's cell phone number. After playing a short advertisement unless users pay a subscription fee or 15 cents per call to skip ads Slydial puts callers directly into their target's voice mail.
Recipients should then get a voice mail notification, and sometimes they will see a caller's number show up as a missed call, too.
Gavin Macomber, co-founder of MobileSphere Ltd., the Boston-based communications company behind Slydial, thinks it can be useful not only in the dating scene but in the hectic business world.
Indeed, Nora Rubinoff, 45, who runs an administrative support company, At Your Service Cincinnati Ltd., has found Slydial helpful for both business and personal situations.
She has left reminder messages for people one of her clients intends to interview.
And when her husband travels to a different time zone for work, she can leave him a Slydial message without disturbing him at an odd time of day, she said.
Macomber said the idea for Slydial came while MobileSphere developed the voice mail routing component of a service meant to lower the cost of international roaming on cell phones.
The company rolled out a private test phase of Slydial in March and has added about 5,000 users since then.
The service opened to the general public in a "beta" testing phase Monday.
There are constraints to this service.
It can be used only in the U.S. right now, and generally won't work with prepaid cell phones.
Also, sly dialers must have the caller ID feature activated on their phones, which Macomber said is meant in part to prevent people from using it to harass people undetected.
When Coke-bottle glasses just won't cut it for safe driving, a futuristic windshield might do the trick.
researchers are working on a windshield that combines lasers, infrared sensors and a camera to take what's happening on the road and enhance it, so aging drivers with vision problems are able to see a little more clearly.
Though it's only in the research stage now, the technology soon will be more useful than ever.
The 65 and older population in the U.S. will nearly double in about 20 years, meaning more people will be struggling to see the road like they used to.
At the same time, the developers say the technology won't cause drivers to plow into trees.
It is enhancing just a few objects that are already in a driver's view, not splashing distracting information onto the glass.
For example, during a foggy drive, a laser projects a blue line onto the windshield that follows the edge of the road.
Or if infrared sensors detect a person or animal in the driver's path during a night drive, its outline is projected on the windshield to highlight its location.
It's possible because of a transparent coating on the windshield that lights up when struck by ultraviolet light.
Sensors have to determine the position of the car in relation to the road, while other devices track the driver's head and eye movement to make sure the image on the windshield isn't skewed.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) Kamal was just 16 when gunmen snatched him off the streets of Baghdad, stuffed him in the trunk of a car and whisked him away to a house.
But the real terror was about to begin.
The men realized he was gay, Kamal said, when he took his shirt off and they saw that his chest was shaved.
This moment was the worst moment in my life," he said, weeping as he spoke of the 2005 ordeal.
"I was watching them taking off their clothes, preparing to rape me. I did not know what to do, so I started shouting loudly, 'Please do not do that! I will ask my family to give you whatever you want '
His pleas went unheeded. "The other two kidnappers took off my clothes by force, and, at that time, I saw them as three dirty animals trying to tear my body apart.
He was held for 15 days, released only after his family paid a $1,500 ransom.
He was raped every day. Only once, he said, was he allowed to talk to his family during captivity. "I told my family that I was beaten by them, but I did not dare to tell my family that I was raped by them.
CNN spoke with Kamal, now 18, and his 21-year-old friend Rami about what it's like to be gay in Iraq.
Coming out as gay is not easy in any country, but to do so in Iraq could mean a death sentence or torture.
The two men rarely show feelings toward each other in public. They spend a lot of time in Internet cafes in Baghdad, surfing gay chat rooms and seeking contacts with other gay men in Iraq and elsewhere.
Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the situation for gays and lesbians in Iraq has deteriorated.
Ridiculed under Hussein, many now find themselves the targets of violence, according to humanitarian officials.
It's unknown how many homosexuals have been killed by militias in the lawless streets of Iraq's cities, but some Web sites post pictures of Iraqis they say were killed for being gay.
One photo on the Iraqi Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender site shows a group of men standing around three male bodies sprawled on a street, blood pouring from their heads.
"Gay Iraqi victims of the police and death squads," the site says.
Although gays are supposed to be protected by law in Iraq, it says, they face extreme brutality.
"Armed Islamic groups and militias have been known to be particularly hostile toward homosexuals, frequently and openly engaging in violent campaigns against them," the report said, adding that homosexuals have been murdered.
"Militias are reportedly threatening families of men believed to be homosexual, stating that they will begin killing family members unless the men are handed over or killed by the family," it said.
The report was issued at the end of 2006 and is the last U.N. study to touch on the subject.
LONDON, England (CNN) The oldest known surviving copy of the New Testament gets the modern touch Thursday when parts of it go online for the first time.
The British Library plans to begin publishing the Codex Sinaiticus, a 4th century text handwritten in Greek, on its Web site.
The Gospel of Mark and the Book of Psalms go online Thursday.
The full manuscript is to be online in a year.
Translations of the Codex Sinaiticus have long been widely available, but publishing images of the manuscript online will let anyone see pages that, until now, have been viewed in detail mainly by academia.
As the Web site becomes operational, it will show photographs of each page of the text, with links to translations in English and German.
There will also be a search function.
"It contains the earliest complete copy of the New Testament," said Scot McKendrick, the head of Western Manuscripts at the British Library.
While the Codex contains all of the New Testament, it also includes part of the Old Testament and originally contained the entire text of the Christian Bible.
The manuscript also includes the Apocrypha, 14 disputed books of the Old Testament that are usually omitted from the Protestant Bible.
It also includes two early Christian texts: the "Epistle of Barnabas" and the "Shepherd of Hermas.
The library announced plans three years ago to digitize the 1,600-year-old book, a tough job since pieces of the manuscript reside in four countries.
Photographers took digital pictures of the text in United Kingdom, Russia, Germany and Egypt to put the entire manuscript online.
Digitizing the text is a windfall for scholars, but the main goal was to make the Codex available to everyone.
Eventually, the manuscript will be translated into Russian and modern Greek.
LONDON, England (CNN) Taking inspiration from nature, designer Ross Lovegrove has brought beauty to an everyday object that few give a passing thought to: the streetlamp.
The energy intensive lamps are quite literally, and figuratively, getting a green makeover and may be sprouting on a street near you soon.
Lovegrove's innovative lighting project, the "Solar Tree," is a solar-powered streetlamp that also serves as a piece of modern art, infusing a bit of nature into the usually gray urban landscape.
He believes that putting complex natural forms in a city can benefit all of society.
The "Solar Tree" has a striking green trunk and ten branches with solar panels that radiate light on the street below.
"The light looks pretty good when it's off. Most of the other lights out there have no life in them when they are off.
I've seen more life in an old guy sleeping on a park bench then I have in some of those other streetlamps," Lovegrove told CNN.
The lamps were first planted, to much acclaim, on the Ringstrasse in Vienna in October 2007 in collaboration with MAK, the Museum of Applied Arts.
During their stay in Vienna the lamps were still able to give off light after four days without direct sunlight, making them an effective form of lighting.
Since their debut in Austria, the trees have been seen budding on some of Europe's most famous streets: Milan's Piazza della Scala, Paris's Champs Elysees and during Frankfurt's Light+Building 2008.
(CNN) A New Zealand judge has made a 9-year-old girl a ward of the court so that her name can be changed from Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii, the country's national news agency reported Thursday.
Family Court Judge Rob Murfitt listed a series of unusual names that New Zealand parents had given their children, and said he was concerned that such strange monikers would create hurdles for them as they grew up.
"It makes a fool of the child and sets her up with a social disability and handicap," the New Zealand Press Association quoted the judge as saying.
Among the names Murfitt cited: twins named Benson and Hedges after a brand of cigarettes; Violence; and Number 16 Bus Shelter.
Some parents had named children after six-cylinder Ford cars, the news agency reported.
The Registrar General of Births, Deaths and Marriages said in a statement that it had rejected names including Fish and Chips, Yeah Detroit, Stallion, Twisty Poi a staple food in Polynesian cuisine and Sex Fruit.
A lawyer for Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii said the girl is so embarrassed by her name that friends know her as "K."
(CNN) Britain's leading online service providers are Thursday expected to join a government backed scheme to tackle the illegal downloading of music and films, despite concerns it could curb the freedoms of Internet users.
The scheme is aimed at an estimated 6.5 million Britons who have downloaded files illegally over the past year, a practice the music industry says could cost it $2 billion over the next five years, according to the UK Press Association.
Under the new measures, the most prolific downloaders will be sent letters to inform them that their activity has been detected and is being monitored.
Further measures will reportedly see their Internet access restricted.
The six Internet providers behind the scheme BT, Virgin Media , Orange, Tiscali, BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse are understood to have committed themselves to developing legal file-sharing services, PA reported.
According to the London Times newspaper, those who download illegally and ignore warnings could be subject to online surveillance and have their Internet speeds restricted to prevent them swapping large files.
"This is something of a step into the unknown for the Internet providers, music industries and minister," former pop star Fergal Sharkey, who now heads musicians' body British Music Rights, told the Times.
BEIJING, China (CNN) Police in China have "cracked" an international terrorist group that was planning to attack Olympic venues in Shanghai, state media reported Thursday.
There were few specific details of group or what it was said to be plotting, with the Xinhua news agency quoting Chen Jiulong, the deputy Shanghai's Public Security Bureau, saying it had acted on information.
Chinese authorities have previously announced terror crackdowns in the run-up to the Olympic Summer Games, which kick off on August 8 in host city Beijing and other venues including the eastern financial capital of Shanghai.
It said two weeks ago that it disrupted five "terrorist" groups in the predominantly Muslim Xinjiang region in China's far west because it suspected them of plotting to attack the games.
The six-month crackdown netted 82 suspected terrorists and marked the end to the first phase of China's Olympic Security Protection, according to Xinhua.
A Human Rights Watch analyst raised concerns that China may be using the Olympics as an excuse to crack down on dissidents.
"It's clear that the police are simply adding cases of people who they think are engaging in activities that are critical of Chinese rule," Nicholas Bequelin told CNN.
The government has not produced any evidence of terror plots, and nearly all of the arrests are based on the confessions sometimes forced of those detained, he said.
"What the government appears to be doing is to conflate terrorism with criminal acts and other cases of dissent," he said.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) The International Olympic Committee has banned Iraq from competing in the upcoming Summer Olympics because of what it says is the government's political interference in sports.
CNN received a copy of the letter, which was sent to Jassim Mohammed Jaffer, Iraqi minister of youth and sports, and Ali Mohsen Ismail, acting secretary general of the Iraqi general secretariat of the Council of Ministers.
"We deeply regret this outcome, which severely harms the Iraqi Olympic and Sports Movement and the Iraqi athletes, but which is unfortunately imposed by the circumstances," said the letter, signed by two IOC officials.
The move stems from an Iraqi government decision in May to suspend Iraq's Olympic Committee and form a temporary committee to handle its duties.
The Iraqi government thought the committee had not been operating properly and as a result undermined the sporting movement in Iraq.
The government said the original committee held meetings without quorums and had officials serving in one-year posts for more than five years.
Many of the officials also lived outside Iraq, the government said.
Emmanuelle Moreau, a spokeswoman for the International Olympic Committee, said that the IOC in June suspended Iraq's national Olympic Committee after the government removed elected officials and put in people the IOC didn't recognize.
She said the IOC proposed to the Iraqi government that officials come to the organization's headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, "to discuss possible solutions.
But she said they didn't respond.
Moreau said Iraq missed a Wednesday deadline for the entry of athletes to compete in archery, judo, rowing and weightlifting.
She said there is a chance that track and field athletes could compete if the original committee is reinstated.
The deadline for the track team to register is at the end of the month.
BERLIN, Germany (CNN) Standing before a massive crowd in a city that once symbolized division, Sen. Barack Obama warned Thursday about the dangers of allowing new walls to come between the United States and its allies.
"People of the world, look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one," Obama said in a speech at Berlin's Victory Column in the Tiergarten park.
"The fall of the Berlin Wall brought new hope. But that very closeness has given rise to new dangers, dangers that cannot be contained within the borders of a country or by the distance of an ocean," he said.
Obama said that people of all nations must stand together to face challenges of the 21st century, from terrorism to global warming to genocide.
None of us can deny these threats or escape responsibility in meeting them," he said.
The greatest danger, Obama said, "is to allow new walls to divide us from one another."
Obama called on Europeans and Americans to join to "defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it.
"If we could win a battle of ideas against the communists, we can stand with the vast majority of Muslims who reject the extremism that leads to hate instead of hope," he said.
NEW YORK (CNN) Yankees catcher Jorge Posada wants to put off surgery on his right shoulder even if it means sacrificing the start of next season.
If he does play the rest of this year, it won't be behind the plate.
On the disabled list for the second time this season, Posada had his throwing shoulder examined by New York Mets medical director Dr. David Altchek on Tuesday, and surgery was again recommended.
An MRI showed fraying in the tendons around the labrum, but not a rotator cuff tear, Posada said Wednesday before the Yankees played the Minnesota Twins.
He missed more than a month earlier this season with right rotator cuff tendinitis.
"I've got 15 days to make a decision," said Posada, who went on the DL Monday. "I'll rehab it and see how it feels and have a decision by then.
In his 14th season, Posada is extremely proud about being a full-time catcher his entire career. But he said that if he is to continue playing this season, catching is "out of the question" for the remainder of the year.
It's about the team now, how can I help the team.
Posada said the Yankees agreed with his decision to keep playing even with the possibility of a six-month rehab looming after surgery.
Hitting .268 with three homers and 22 RBIs in 168 at-bats this season, Posada said the shoulder doesn't hurt when he's swinging a bat but has gotten weaker because of his throwing.
Posada will continue his rehabilitation regime without throwing drills and will make a decision based on how the shoulder is responding.
BEIJING, China (CNN) Questions about salaries are out.
Ditto queries about the age of a foreigner visiting Beijing for the Olympics.
And an inquiry about someone's love life? Forget it.
These are part of the "Eight don't asks" displayed on posters in a central Beijing district that give conversational etiquette guidelines to residents for when they meet foreigners or disabled athletes during next month's Olympics.
The advice on Chinese-language posters was put together by the propaganda department of Dongcheng district to educate residents on how to properly welcome visitors during the Olympics, a spokeswoman for the district said.
Dongcheng includes Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.
It is also the location of the Beijing Workers' Gymnasium, the boxing venue for the August 8-24 Olympics.
One poster focuses on "etiquette when communicating with foreigners.
" Locals are instructed not to ask foreigners personal questions about their age, salary, love life, health, income, political views, religious beliefs or personal experiences.
"It's normal for Chinese to ask people they just met such questions, but foreigners respond negatively to such questions," Beijing municipal government spokeswoman Wang Zhaoqian said Wednesday.
"By educating locals, we hope that they will become more socially sensitive when communicating with visitors," she said.
Another poster gives advice on talking to disabled people.
Locals are told not to use phrases such as "It's up there," or "It's over there" when talking to anyone who is visually impaired, and to avoid phrases such as "It's behind you" to physically impaired athletes.
But it turns out to be useful, for science as well as the fish.
Exploring how their nervous system produces sounds is allowing scientists to trace the earliest developments of vocalization in other animals, including people.
Many animals communicate vocally birds chirp, frogs thrum, whales whistle and comparing the nerve networks in a variety of vertebrates suggests that making sounds originated in ancient fishes, researchers report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.
The sounds of whales and dolphins are well known, but most people don't realize fish also make sounds, lead researcher Andrew H. Bass of Cornell University said in a telephone interview.
"But some of the networks of neurons, nerve cells in the brain, are very ancient.
The whole nervous system basis that led to speech originated in fish hundreds of millions of years ago, he said.
it's the simplest type of communication ... but the parts of the nervous system that generate sounds are easiest to study in these fish," Bass said.
His team found two major uses of sound.
One is the hum in which the male sings to attract the female to his nest.
MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) A pack of enormous bears searching for food killed and ate two men at mines in Russia's Pacific Kamchatka region and have kept hundreds of geologists and miners from reaching the mine, Russian news agencies reported Wednesday.
A pack of up to 30 Kamchatka bears which are similar to grizzlies prowled around two mines of a local platinum mining company where they killed the two guards on Thursday, local officials were quoted by the ITAR-Tass news agency as saying.
About 400 company workers have refused to return to the mines for fear of the bears, which stand 10 feet (three meters) tall on their hind legs and weigh up to 1,500 pounds (700 kilograms), Interfax reported.
About 10 bears have also been seen near the village of Khailino sniffing fish remains and other garbage.
Village official Viktor Leushkin was quoted by ITAR-Tass as saying that a team of hunters will be dispatched to shoot or chase off the bears.
"Once they kill a human, they will do it again and again.
Rampant fish poaching in the Kamchatka tundra often forces the bears to seek other sources of food, such as garbage.
Bears frequently attack humans in the scarcely populated peninsula region.
(CNN) A magnitude 6.8 earthquake rattled north-central Japan early Thursday, injuring at least four people, triggering landslides and cutting power to thousands of homes, according to reports.
The epicenter of the quake, which struck about 12:26 a.m., was in eastern Honshu, about 25km (15 miles) east-northeast of the town of Morioka and 80km (50 miles) south of Hachinohe, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
The Associated Press reported the quake lasted for up to 40 seconds, with four people injured, landslides triggered and power cut to thousands.
Broadcaster NHK said more than 20 people had been injured in several northern prefectures, but none of their injuries were life threatening, AP reported.
Although the quake is classified as "strong" by the USGS, data showed its center was 111km (69 miles) below Earth's surface.
In general, earthquakes centered closer to the Earth's surface produce stronger shaking and generally can cause more damage than those further underground.
The Japanese Meteorological Agency said there was no danger of a tsunami.
A 7.2-magnitude quake struck northern Japan's Iwate Prefecture last month, killing at least 10 people and injuring more than 200.
At least 12 were missing as a result of the June 14 quake, buried in the rubble of a secluded resort in neighboring Miyagi Prefecture.
NEW YORK (CNN) Oil prices shed nearly $4 Wednesday, tumbling below $125 a barrel for the first time since early June on growing fears that high prices and the weak economy are destroying demand.
Light, sweet crude for September delivery dropped $3.98 to settle at $124.44 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude's lowest finish since June 4.
The August contract expired Tuesday at $127.95.
The U.S. Energy Department reported gasoline stockpiles jumped by 2.9 million barrels last week, far more than analysts surveyed by energy research firm Platts predicted.
The decline in crude inventories was less than forecast.
Concerns that Hurricane Dolly might affect U.S. oil and natural gas output in the Gulf of Mexico dwindled as it made landfall near South Padre Island in Texas.
A stronger dollar added to the pressure on crude prices.
As recently as a week and a half ago, oil seemed on a relentless march toward $150 a barrel.
In other Nymex trading, heating oil futures lost 12.8 cents to settle at $3.5501 a gallon, while gasoline futures shed 11.26 cents to settle at $3.0344 a gallon.
Natural gas prices fell 27.9 cents to $9.788 per 1,000 cubic feet its first finish below $10 since April.
September Brent crude tumbled $4.26 to settle at $125.29 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.
(CNN) U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed her North Korean counterpart Wednesday to agree a plan for verifying its nuclear activity.
It was the highest level meeting between the two countries in four years and also involved China, Russia, Japan and South Korea the six nations involved in trying to secure a nuclear free Korean peninsula.
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi described the talks as "quite significant" and said that "major issues" were discussed "in a frank and proactive manner.
"This in itself shows that the six parties have the political will to move forward the six-party talks process," he said.
Rice, who told reporters she shook hands twice with North Korean Foreign Minster Pak Ui Chun, called the informal session "a good meeting" but said there were "no surprises.
She said that all parties emphasized to North Korea the need to complete a three-phase agreement in which Pyongyang promised to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.
In return, Washington has agreed to take North Korea off the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Rice said the parties pressed North Korea to quickly agree to a plan for verifying its nuclear activity, which it documented last month in a "declaration" of its nuclear past.
The encounter took place on the sidelines of the summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
A spokesman for Pak said during the session the North Korean foreign minister emphasized the need for "full implementation" of obligations from all parties.
The meeting was billed as an "informal" session, rather than an official ministerial of the six party countries.
Rice and Jiechi said they hoped a more formal meeting could be held soon in Beijing, China.
South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan called the meeting a good opportunity to "show that the six-party process is maturing.
SDEROT, Israel (CNN) Sen. Barack Obama said Wednesday that a nuclear-armed Iran would be a "game-changing" situation, not just in the Middle East but throughout the world.
Obama said a nuclearized Iran could lead to other countries, including ones with ties to terrorists, feeling the need to obtain nuclear weapons.
That, he said, could lead to terrorists getting their hands on loose nuclear materials.
"That is our single most important threat, both to Israel but also to the United States of America," he said in the southern Israeli town of Sderot.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said that if he's elected, he wants to act quickly to mobilize the international community to "offer a series of big sticks and big carrots to the Iranian regime to stand down on nuclear weapons.
"But what I have also said, though, is that I will take no options off the table in dealing with this potential Iranian threat," he said.
HONG KONG (CNN) Cannes best actor winner Tony Leung Chiu-wai and longtime companion Carina Lau have held a wedding ceremony at a resort in the Himalayan nation Bhutan.
Hong Kong art-house director Wong Kar-wai's Jet Tone Films earlier confirmed the location of the wedding and released several wedding photos but didn't immediately provide more detail.
The Apple Daily newspaper reported Tuesday that a local monk presided over the wedding, and other monks chanted prayers.
The South China Morning Post said Leung donned a white suit, and Lau a traditional Chinese red gown.
(CNN) AC Milan have denied reports claiming that big-spending Chelsea have made an offer for the Italian club's Brazilian superstar Kaka.
The 26-year-old's future has been the subject of intense speculation following the appointment of Brazil's former World Cup-winning coach Luiz Felipe Scolari by the English side.
Kaka's advisor Diogo Kotscho last weekend further stoked the rumor mill when he claimed that debt-ridden Milan needed to sell the player, and that a transfer was likely to go ahead.
The British media have reported that the fee could be as high as $238 million, which would smash the world record.
However, Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani issued a statement on the Serie A club's Web site on Tuesday insisting that he although he met Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich earlier this summer, no firm offer had yet been made.
"The offers for Kaka are only in the newspapers, and they make up stories," Galliani told www.acmilan.com. "Today there are talks of a 150 million euros offer and tomorrow it will be 200.
"Nothing is true neither from Chelsea nor from any other club have we received that kind of offer."
SINGAPORE (CNN) U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has begun talks with Asian officials in Singapore before meeting North Korea's top diplomat in what will be the Bush administration's highest-level contact with the communist state in four years.
Amid promising developments in the international effort to get the North to abandon nuclear weapons, Rice is hoping to gauge the North's commitment to the process when she sees North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun on Wednesday on the sidelines of an Asian security forum in Singapore.
Diplomats expect Pak to provide at least an initial response to the proposal at the meeting with Rice and the foreign ministers of the other four nations involved:
China, Japan, South Korea and Russia.
"It will give some indication of the amount of effort the North Koreans have put into completing this verification protocol," chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill said late Tuesday.
The draft calls for intrusive inspections of North Korean nuclear facilities, soil sampling, interviews with key scientists and a role for U.N. atomic experts.
Hill travels on Friday to the International Atomic Energy Agency headquarters in Vienna to brief them on developments.
(CNN) Cambodia and Thailand failed to resolve a weeklong military standoff over an ancient border temple that sits on disputed land.
that troops that each country has amassed at the site of the Preah Vihear temple will not fire on each other, the Thai News Agency reported.
Officials will reconvene after Cambodia's general election on July 27.
For now, the countries are seeking regional intervention from their Southeast Asian neighbors.
Foreign ministers of the 10 countries that comprise the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are meeting in Singapore this week.
Cambodia has also sent a letter to the United Nations Security Council to call attention to the standoff.
NEW YORK (CNN) Ads promoting Islam are to be placed on New York subway cars in September, but a U.S. congressman finds people sponsoring the messages unacceptable.
Peter King, a New York Republican, said Tuesday.
He is urging the Metropolitan Transit Authority to reject the ads.
The campaign is to feature ads on 1,000 of the subway system's roughly 6,200 cars.
The main sponsor is a grassroots organization, Islamic Circle of North America.
The ads, simple black-and-white panels, will feature key words or phrases about Islam on one side of the panel such as "Head Scarf?"
or "Prophet Muhammad?" and the words "You deserve to know" along with the Web site address WhyIslam.org on the other side.
Another of the backers of the advertising campaign which will launch in September to coincide with the monthlong Islamic holiday of Ramadan is Siraj Wahhaj, imam of a Brooklyn mosque.
Wahhaj was the first Muslim to lead a prayer before the House of Representatives, but King objects to him because he was a character witness for convicted 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman.
"He is a known Islamic extremist, and you would be giving him credibility and stature through a known government facility," said King, ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee.
Wahhaj also appeared on a list of 170 potential unindicted co-conspirators in the 1993 bombing case.
A prosecutor said not everyone on the list was considered a co-conspirator.
Speaking to reporters Monday, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg did not join in King's outrage about the ads.
"If you were to advocate becoming a Muslim, I assume the First Amendment would protect you," he said.
But King, noting that the ads would be up during the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks, said, "I'm calling on the MTA not to have these ads, not to go forward with them, and I don't see this as a free speech issue at all.
King said he sent a letter to the MTA on Monday night demanding it reject the ads.
LONDON, England (CNN) "Dark Knight" star Christian Bale has denied allegations by his mother and sister that he assaulted them, and he is cooperating with police, Bale's publicists said Tuesday.
Bale has not been charged with any crime, his publicists said.
"Christian Bale attended a London police station today, on a voluntary basis, in order to assist with an allegation that had been made against him to the police by his mother and sister," the statement said.
British media reported that police questioned Bale over an allegation that he assaulted his mother and sister at a London hotel a day before the European premiere of "The Dark Knight.
Asked about the reports, a spokeswoman for London's Metropolitan Police said a 34-year-old man was arrested in connection with an allegation of assault but would not divulge his name.
The statement from Bale's publicists did not say whether an arrest had been made.
"Mr. Bale, who denies the allegation, cooperated throughout, gave his account in full of the events in question and has left the station without any charge being made against him by the police," it said.
A woman believed to be Bale's sister Sharon said "it's a family matter" from her home in Corfe Mullen, 110 miles southwest of London, according to the AP.
A man who answered the door at the home of his mother, Jenny Bale, in nearby Bournemouth said she did not want to comment, the AP reported.
Bale is in London after the British premiere of "The Dark Knight," the latest Batman movie and a Warner Brothers film.
Warner Brothers is owned by Time Warner, also the parent company of CNN.
Bale plays Bruce Wayne/Batman in "The Dark Knight," which co-stars the late Heath Ledger as the Joker.
The film cashed-in with a record-breaking $158.4 million at the box office in its opening weekend.
Bale reprised the role of Gotham's superhero, which he played in "Batman Begins.
SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas (CNN) Dolly became a Category 1 hurricane Tuesday afternoon in the western Gulf of Mexico, prompting a weather official to urge anyone on Texas' barrier islands to consider leaving immediately.
Dolly, formerly a tropical storm, was heading toward southern Texas and northeastern Mexico and was expected to make landfall Wednesday morning, forecasters said.
"Anyone in the far South Texas barrier islands who don't want to ride out the rough conditions of a hurricane should be leaving now and not waiting until tomorrow," said Bill Read, director of the National Hurricane Center.
By Wednesday, Read said, it probably will be too late to escape the storm because roads could be "easily overwashed.
At 5 p.m. ET, the storm, with sustained winds near 75 mph and gusts of 90 mph, was centered in the Gulf of Mexico about 165 miles east-southeast of Brownsville, Texas, the hurricane center said.
A hurricane warning was in effect for the Texas coast from Brownsville to Corpus Christi and for northeast Mexico from Rio San Fernando to the U.S. border.
JERUSALEM (CNN) A Palestinian man went on a rampage Tuesday in downtown Jerusalem, ramming a construction vehicle into cars and buses before he was shot and killed near the hotel where Sen. Barack Obama is scheduled to stay Tuesday night.
It was the second such attack there this month.
One person was "moderately to seriously wounded," and four others sustained minor injuries, according to an Israeli government statement, citing Jerusalem's police chief.
Twenty people were treated for shock.
Israeli police identified the driver of the backhoe as a 22-year-old Palestinian with a criminal record from East Jerusalem.
The attack came three weeks after a Palestinian construction worker drove his front-end loader over several vehicles in Jerusalem, killing three people before he was shot and killed.
The driver in Tuesday's attack struck several vehicles, including a No. 13 city bus, before a civilian and an Israeli border policeman shot him, a government statement said.
Video footage showed the body of the driver slumped inside the cab of the vehicle.
The backhoe had crushed the front end of a minibus;
it was unclear if anyone was inside.
A car's front hood was left crumpled, and the driver's side door was dangling on its hinges.
Another car was overturned, and a bus lay on its side.
A woman, who was conscious, was taken away on a stretcher
The Israeli government immediately labeled the incident a terrorist attack.
President Bush condemned the attack through a spokeswoman and called on others to do the same.
"If it turns out that it was terrorism, all parties must condemn it," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. "Terrorist attacks do nothing to further the goals of Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace, a goal the president has been advocating for, and that both of those countries' leaders have been working toward. "
(CNN) Sen. Barack Obama on Tuesday toured the Jordanian capital of Amman, where the much talked about "Obama-mania" is not that easy to find.
Just 22 percent of Jordanians who are following the U.S. presidential election have confidence in Obama, according to a recent survey from the Pew Research Center.
And in the nearby countries of Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey, Obama also gets negative reviews.
Obama still fares better than John McCain in those countries, but in Jordan the two candidates are about equal.
But the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate is revered as a superstar in other parts of the world.
In France and Germany where Obama will travel later this week more than 80 percent have confidence in the senator from Illinois, while just a third say they have confidence in McCain.
Obama's numbers are only slightly lower in Britain, another stop on this week's trip abroad.
According to Pew's 24-nation survey, 74 percent express confidence in him there, compared to 44 percent for McCain.
BELGRADE, Serbia (CNN) Former Bosnian leader Radovan Karadzic will fight extradition from Serbia on war crime charges, his lawyer said Tuesday.
Lawyer Sveta Vujacic also disputed Serbian accounts of Karadzic's arrest alleging the man known as the 'Butcher of Bosnia' was seized Friday and held in secret for three days.
Karadzic, 63, is accused of ordering the deadly siege of Sarajevo and some of the worst atrocities in Europe since World War II including the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica
Vujacic said Serbian authorities were not telling the truth about Karadzic's arrest.
"Nobody seems to know who arrested him and where he has been since last Friday at 21:30 hours, when he was arrested," he said.
that these people showed him a police badge and then he was taken to some place and kept in the room. He was blindfolded ... he was kept in some room ... and that is absolutely against the law what they did.
Vujacic said he will launch criminal proceedings in addition to an appeal against Karadzic's transfer to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague.
Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson has warned Cristiano Ronaldo that moving to Real Madrid would be "the worst thing" for his career.
The Portugal winger again refused to commit himself to the Red Devils over the weekend, but Ferguson is confident he will stay at Old Trafford after scoring 42 goals last season.
"After the Champions League final, he was the happiest boy in the world," Ferguson said Monday from the club's tour of South Africa.
"I think he knows genuinely where the best club is to be at, and that is Manchester United.
"I honestly believe that the worst thing he could do is go to Real Madrid.
He's 23 years old, he is at the right club, he is at a fantastic club and there should not be any need to think in any other way.
"He signed a five-year contract with the team last year and he has four years left," Ferguson said. "That's definite I've seen his signature.
Ronaldo, who is sidelined until at least October after recently undergoing surgery on his right ankle, is not on the tour to South Africa.
United play the Orlando Pirates on Tuesday in Durban.
Conan O'Brien will take over the "Tonight" show next June and what happens to deposed host Jay Leno after that is anybody's guess.
Leno's last show will be Friday, May 29, and O'Brien will start the following Monday, June 1, NBC executives told a Television Critics Association meeting Monday.
NBC is angling to keep Leno with the network but the late-night king has indicated he's ready to jump ship.
Ben Silverman and Marc Graboff, NBC Entertainment co-chairmen, were asked about the specter of Leno being hired by ABC.
NAPLES, Italy (CNN) For years, it's been a national embarrassment.
Over the past year, it's spiraled into a crisis damaging Italy's image all over the world: the heaps of garbage lining the streets of Naples.
The stench alone has kept many visitors away.
It began more than 14 years ago, but flared up last year when official dumps were declared full.
Residents with no options simply dumped their trash along streets and sidewalks.
Mixed in with standard household trash are old appliances, furniture and containers of chemical solvents.
The European Commission called the trash a threat to the environment and human health, in breach of European Union rules on waste disposal.
In May the commission said it was bringing the case before the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
But now, three months after Silvio Berlusconi won an election to become prime minister again, many of these areas have been cleaned up.
He sat down for an exclusive interview with CNN to declare that the worst of the crisis is over.
"The streets and the squares of Naples, and the rest of the region, are back to being what they were always supposed to be like: Western, therefore clean cities, civilized and without the shadow of garbage left in the streets," he said.
The key, he said, was "to bring the state back to this region and to Naples.
"What I mean is that the state could not continue to accept situations that went against the law, and it could not continue to accept the impositions of minorities, sometimes small but well organized, which opposed decisions taken by state institutions. We imposed legality even through the use of force.
He was referring to the groups that fought against opening new landfills particularly residents who don't want dumps in their neighborhoods.
Berlusconi launched a massive clean-up operation, involving the military and security forces to guard the landfills.
A new incinerator has been under construction for years and is expected to be in operation by the end of the year.
Berlusconi said he also plans to build three more incinerators in the area.
"We actually hope to speed up construction works with three working shifts that will include weekends," he said. "So we hope to complete them in two years.
(CNN) Portugal's attorney general has told police to halt the probe into the disappearance of British girl Madeleine McCann but her parents vowed the search would go on.
The police case will remain on hold unless new evidence emerges.
Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry and Robert Murat, a Briton living in Portugal.
Madeleine was nearly four when she vanished from her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz as her parents dined in a tapas restaurant with friends nearby.
Despite a huge police investigation and massive coverage in the Portuguese and British media, she has not been found.
Kate McCann said: "We look forward to scrutinizing the police files to see what has been done and what can be done.
She said they would leave "no stone unturned" in the continuing hunt for Madeleine by the McCanns' own private investigators.
Kate McCann said she thought being named as a suspect by the Portuguese police had a devastating effect on the case.
He said their treatment as suspects had been a "distraction" from the main task of finding Madeleine.
"All of this has damaged their good reputations and they will have to assess where they go from here," he said. "The only thing they care about is finding Madeleine. We hope that the Portuguese authorities will continue to cooperate with their private investigation."
o pepper imported from Mexico at a Texas food supplier, the Food and Drug Administration announced Monday.
The FDA also warned consumers not to eat fresh jalapeñ os and products made with fresh jalapeñ
The discovery may provide a clue to the source of a recent outbreak of Salmonella Saintpaul.
The bacteria have sickened more than 1,200 people in 42 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"One of the jalapeñ o peppers has tested positive with a genetic match to the Saintpaul strand," said Robert Tauxe, deputy director of the CDC's Division of Foodborne, Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases.
He said officials are "looking at the chain that the peppers would have passed through to decide if any of them are a point of contamination."
Tauxe called the discovery a "significant break.
"While this one sample does not give us the whole story, this genetic break is very important," he said. "This will hopefully help us pinpoint the source of this outbreak."
(CNN) Italian newspapers, an archbishop and civil liberties campaigners expressed shock and revulsion on Monday after photographs were published of sunbathers apparently enjoying a day at the beach just meters from where the bodies of two drowned Roma girls were laid out on the sand.
Italian news agency ANSA reported that the incident had occurred on Saturday at the beach of Torregaveta, west of Naples, southern Italy, where the two girls had earlier been swimming in the sea with two other Roma girls.
Reports said they had gone to the beach to beg and sell trinkets.
Local news reports said the four girls found themselves in trouble amid fierce waves and strong currents.
Emergency services responded 10 minutes after a distress call was made from the beach and two lifeguards attended the girls upon hearing their screams.
Two of them were pulled to safety but rescuers failed to reach the other two in time to save them.
Corriere della Sera said that a crowd of curious onlookers that had formed around the bodies quickly dispersed.
"Few left the beach or abandoned their sunbathing. When the police from the mortuary arrived an hour later with coffins, the two girls were carried away between bathers stretched out in the sun."
"Indifference is not an emotion for human beings," Seppe wrote in his parish blog. "To turn the other way or to mind your own business can sometimes be more devastating than the events that occur."
In a statement published on its Web site, the Italian civil liberties group EveryOne said Saturday's drowning had occurred in an atmosphere of "racism and horror" and cast doubt on the reported version of events, suggesting that it appeared unusual for the four girls to wade into the sea, apparently casting modesty aside and despite being unable to swim.
"The most shocking aspect of all this is the attitude of the people on the beach," the statement said.
"No one appears the slightest upset at the sight and presence of the children's dead bodies on the beach: they carry on swimming, sunbathing, sipping soft drinks and chatting.
"While the lifeless bodies of the girls were still on the sand, there were those who carried on sunbathing or having lunch just a few meters away," Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported.
Oil prices rebounded strongly Monday, following the largest four-day slide in trading history, as investors focused on a break down of negotiations with Iran, as well as Tropical Storm Dolly, which is making its way into the Gulf of Mexico.
Light, sweet crude oil for August delivery settled up $2.16 to $131.04 a barrel.
Oil endured a volatile session, bouncing between $129 and $130 for much of the morning before rebounding later in the session.
"This is the bulls' last gasp before the contract expires Tuesday," said Stephen Schork, editor of the energy industry newsletter The Schork Report.
"The bulls had been running scared because of the huge declines we had.
Oil prices fell more than $16 a barrel over the previous four sessions, as the market focused on a possible thawing of U.S. and Iranian tensions, and investors feared that tight supplies may have eased a bit.
But negotiations between Iran and six Western nations over the Middle Eastern nation's nuclear ambitions broke down Saturday when Iran scoffed at a call to freeze its uranium enrichment plans.
Gun battles between paramilitary troops and militants in Pakistan's troubled southwest killed at least 41 people Sunday, including nine soldiers, the state-run news agency reported.
The fighting in the province of Balochistan is not connected to an ongoing military offensive in the country's northwest, which also has claimed dozens of lives.
Balochistan is rich in natural gas, and insurgents there have been fighting Pakistani military forces for self-rule.
For years, they have complained that the government has paid little attention to them and their economic needs.
After militants in the province attacked a convoy of soldiers Saturday, security forces launched an offensive in the district of Dera Bugti, local media said.
Dera Bugti is home to four major gas fields and was once the operational base for rebel leader Nawab Akbar Bugti, who was killed in a military raid in 2006.
By Sunday, the clashes claimed 41 lives, the Associated Press of Pakistan reported.
Pakistan has said the militants in Balochistan near the Afghan border do not have links to the Islamic hardliners who have launched assaults in other parts of the country. Recently, the province has seen an influx of Afghan refugees.
And Afghanistan's government believes key Taliban leaders may be hiding among them.
KATHMANDU, Nepal (CNN) Almost two months after Nepal was declared a republic, lawmakers Monday voted Ram Baran Yadav, a physician, as its first ever president.
Yadav, who is in his 60s, was declared the president in a runoff election after none of the three candidates could get a majority in the first round held on Saturday, announced Kul Bahadur Gurung, chairman of the constituent assembly.
Yadav was the general secretary of the Nepali Congress party and belongs to the ethnic minority Madhesi group from Nepal's troubled southern region.
"As constitutional president, my role will be one of coordinating between the various parties," Yadav said before he was declared the winner.
the sovereignty, integrity and independence of Nepal," he said. "I want to bring an end to violence and end to communal politics.
He beat his rival Ram Raja Prasad Singh, 73, chosen by the former rebel group Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) by 308 votes to 282 votes of the constituent assembly, for which elections were held in April.
Although the Maoists are the biggest party in the constituent assembly, an alliance of Nepali Congress, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), the Madhesi Janadhikar (People's Rights) Forum and several smaller parties came together in the presidential vote Monday.
Zimbabwe's president and his main political rival have signed an agreement for formal talks
The deal signed Monday provides the groundwork to end political violence and establish some sort of coalition government between President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
Mugabe stressed that the coming negotiations would involve "no dictation from the outside."
He said: "We shall be doing this as Zimbabweans ... with the help of South Africa."
The signing comes three weeks after a disputed vote that Mugabe claims gave him another term in office but was decried by opponents as a fraudulent victory won through intimidation.
Both Mugabe and Tsvangirai appeared at a news conference Monday with South African President Thabo Mbeki, who mediated the memorandum of understanding.
It is the first time the bitter political rivals have appeared together publicly.
At the end of the event but only after being prompted by Mbeki Mugabe and Tsvangirai shook hands.
Tsvangirai said "it's too early yet to make a judgment as to the outcome of the process" but noted that it is "a collective effort and it involves tolerance, compromise, (and) putting the best interest of Zimbabwe at the forefront of these negotiations.
Tsvangirai referred to Mugabe as president of the Zanu-PF party not the country.
Sen. Barack Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Monday discussed a "general time horizon" for any American troop withdrawals from Iraq, al-Maliki's office said.
Obama who has made ending the Iraq war a cornerstone of his run for office engaged in what were described as productive talks with al-Maliki during a trip to Iraq.
The Iraqi government has been pushing for the United States to set a general timetable to spell out troop withdrawals.
The Bush administration has opposed timetables for troop withdrawals.
But al-Maliki and President Bush last week agreed to a "general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals" on troop cuts.
The prime minister reiterated that principle with Obama, according to a statement from al-Maliki's office.
"Developments of the situation and the circumstances is what will decide the presence of foreign troops in Iraq, but without keeping open-ended dates," al-Maliki said, according to a statement from his office.
Obama has proposed withdrawing U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office.
Spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the Iraqi government's "vision" is that most U.S. combat troops would be out of Iraq by 2010. Asked if that stance is part of the current negotiations, al-Dabbagh said, "No. This is the Iraqi vision."
A German magazine on Saturday quoted al-Maliki as saying he backed Obama's proposal, but al-Dabbagh has said that his remarks "were misunderstood, mistranslated and not conveyed accurately.
(CNN) The New York Times has rejected an essay that Sen. John McCain wrote defending his Iraq war policy.
The piece was in response to an op-ed from Sen. Barack Obama that was published in the paper last week.
In an e-mail to the McCain campaign, Opinion Page Editor David Shipley said he could not accept the piece as written, but would be "pleased, though, to look at another draft.
It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece."
Times said it is "standard procedure on our Op-Ed page, and that of other newspapers, to go back and forth with an author on his or her submission.
We have published at least seven Op-Ed pieces by Senator McCain since 1996. The New York Times endorsed Senator McCain as the Republican candidate in the presidential primaries. We take his views very seriously," the statement said.
McCain's rejected op-ed was a lengthy critique of Obama's positions on Iraq policy, particularly his view of the surge.
"Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history," wrote McCain, criticizing Obama's call for an early withdrawal timeline.
"I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the 'Mission Accomplished' banner prematurely.
(CNN) Former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic has been arrested after more than a decade in hiding, a U.N. war crimes tribunal announced Monday.
Karadzic, 63, is charged with genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the law of war.
He was the Bosnian Serb political leader during the 1992-1995 war that followed Bosnia-Herzegovina's secession from Yugoslavia the time of the Srebrenica massacre and siege of Sarajevo.
He was last seen in public in 1996, and no details of his arrest were immediately available.
A US shooting rampage at the Virginia Tech university has left 33 people, including a suspected gunman, dead.
There were two incidents two hours apart, at a student dorm where two were killed and at an engineering building where 30 and the gunman died.
Officers said they were working to link the attacks and had not yet identified the gunman.
Virginia Tech police chief Wendell Flinchum said that emergency services had received a call at 0715 (1215 GMT) alerting them to a shooting at the dormitory - West Ambler Johnston Hall.
He said that two hours later there was a second report of shooting, this time at the engineering building, Norris Hall.
Asked why the campus was not closed after the first shooting, Flinchum said that, at that stage, it was thought to be an isolated incident.
Police believed the first shooting may have been a ””domestic incident”” and that the gunman had left the campus.
South Korea will propose establishing a peace framework on the Korean Peninsula during the 16th round of inter-Korean minister-level talks that starts today, a Unification Ministry official said Monday.
``We think it is necessary for the two Koreas to start serious discussions on the matter,’’ Kim Chun-sik, director of the ministry’s Inter-Korean Exchanges and Cooperation Bureau, told reporters.
Kim, who is also spokesman for the inter-Korean Cabinet talks, cited ``substantial progress’’ in the six-nation talks on the North’s nuclear weapons program as a reason to put forward the agenda.
The six-nation talks, in which the U.S., China, Japan and Russia participate along with the two Koreas, reopen today in Beijing.
Commanders worry about the military reform plan.
A memorial service to the 9.11 terror held in NY.
South Korea´s state-run pension funds held nearly 220 trillion won (US$232.6 billion) as of the end of 2007, with an increasing amount of money being invested in stocks, a government report showed Thursday.
As water is pumped out of New Orleans, the diminishing flood reveals dead bodies, raw sewage, fuel and rusting vehicles - nine days after Hurricane Katrina hit.
President Bush is to ask Congress for more than $50bn (£27bn) in extra emergency funding to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
The money - on top of $10bn that has already been granted - is slated for rescue efforts, clean drinking water, and public health needs.
They apparently contracted infections after coming into contact with cholera-related bacteria in the water.
The US Environmental Protection Agency says the floodwaters contain unsafe levels of E.coli and other bacteria as well as high levels of lead.
As water is pumped out of New Orleans, the diminishing flood reveals dead bodies, raw sewage, fuel and rusting vehicles - nine days after Hurricane Katrina hit.
Yahoo helps arresting Chinese journalist.
Four people dead of Nabi in Japan.
The Seoul Central District Court acquitted eight dissident activists of treason, 32 years after they were hanged for allegedly forming a pro-North Korean political party.
They were among the 23 activists and students arrested in 1975 on accusations that they had formed a committee to reestablish the ””People`s Revolutionary Party””, which the brutal and repressive Park Chung-hee regime called an organization attempting to ””overthrow the Republic of Korea according to North Korean programs.”
” The eight individuals _ Woo Hong-son, Song Sang-jin, Do Ye-jong, Yeo Jong-nam, Kim Yong-won, Seo Do-won, Ha Jae-wan and Lee Sub-young _ were executed just 18 hours after the Supreme Court sentenced them to the death penalty. The remaining suspects were sentenced to 15 years in prison.
In ruling, the Seoul court cleared the executed dissidents of all charges, including violation of the National Security Law and the anti-communism law and treason charges for plotting to overthrow the government.”
Hezbollah fighters have launched more than 230 rockets from Lebanon, the biggest single-day barrage since the conflict began, Israeli officials say.
One person was killed and dozens injured as some rockets landed up to 70km inside Israel, the deepest so far.
The upsurge came as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel had destroyed Hezbollah's infrastructure.
Olmert insisted there would be no ceasefire until an international force was deployed in southern Lebanon.
The hail of Hezbollah rockets came after Israeli troops raided Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold in north-east Lebanon, seizing five people they said were Hezbollah fighters.
Hezbollah said they were civilians.
One rocket killed a man near the town of Nahariya on the west coast, bringing the number of Israeli civilians killed since the conflict started to 19.
About three dozen Israeli soldiers have also died.
In Lebanon, about 750 people - mainly civilians - have been killed by Israeli action, according to the Lebanese health minister.
The hail of Hezbollah rockets came after Israeli troops raided Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold in north-east Lebanon, seizing five people they said were Hezbollah fighters.
The Korea Herald reports members of the six-party talks took a two-day recess yesterday to look over a “common document,” encompassing the nuclear declaration and disablement steps and corresponding incentives, to be finalized as early as this Tuesday.
”Some of the delegations needed to go back and discuss with their government before finalizing the document so we decided to take a break before adopting the document,” South Korea´s chief envoy Chun Yung-woo said.
The U.S. delegation led by Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill immediately set out to Washington in the afternoon.
Japanese and Russian delegations were also set to return home soon.
The North Korean delegation will be staying in Beijing, diplomatic sources here said.
It was not immediately made known whether another plenary session will open by Tuesday to finalize the decision on the document.
onfusion marred popular Korean boy band TVXQ's sold-out concert ``The Second Asia Tour 'O''' at Olympic Gymnastics Stadium in Seoul, as thousands of fans waited for hours after the concert to retrieve their cell phones and digital cameras from the organizers.
In a move criticized as being excessive… concert organizers required the 8,000 fans who attended concert to leave their cell phones and digital cameras in three designated booths before entering the stadium.
This was done to ensure that fans would not be able to take photographs or videos of TVXQ during the concert.
Images of the concert were licensed to several mobile phone content providers.
After the concert ended, fans, mostly middle school and high school girls, scrambled to retrieve their belongings. Since there was no system for the retrieval at three booths, there was a lot of confusion.
Entertainment companies are increasingly becoming concerned over copyright violations resulting from these fan videos and photos, which are usually circulated on the Web.
In contrast, some international pop stars allow their fans to take photographs. Irish pop superstars Westlife even asked their fans to take photos during the concert in Seoul last year.
In a move criticized as being excessive… concert organizers required the 8,000 fans who attended concert to leave their cell phones and digital cameras in three designated booths before entering the stadium.
After the concert ended, fans, mostly middle school and high school girls, scrambled to retrieve their belongings.
There've been clashes between police and Christians protesting against the demolition of a church in communist China's eastern Zhejiang province, reports say.
The violence occurred when up to 500 police tried to break up a 3,000-strong protest, a rights group said.
Twenty people were hurt, including four who were seriously injured, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said.
A police official confirmed an incident had taken place on Saturday. He told the French news agency AFP that the church in the suburb of Xiaoshan had to be destroyed.
˝Korea and the European Union will begin their second round of talks over a free trade agreement today, aiming to narrow differences on various regulations restricting trade, according to the Korea Herald.
About 130 Korean negotiators, led by Deputy Trade Minister Kim Han-soo, will meet with about 60 EU negotiators led by Ignacio Garcia Bercero, director of trade relations at the European Commission, in Brussels through Friday.
The two sides are expected to advance talks in four areas: manufacturing, services and investment, regulation-related issues, sustainable development and dispute settlement regulations, Seoul´s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said.
Many experts predict the Korea-EU FTA talks to proceed more smoothly than the Korea-U.S. talks because Seoul and Brussels share similar sensitive issues concerning agriculture.
In most of Korea´s previous free trade negotiations, agriculture has stood as a major obstacle in concluding deals.˝
had their first sexual experience when they were 20-21, but a third of the group had their first sexual experiences in middle or high school.
They limit themselves to about five times a month.
The survey investigated the sexual attitudes of 1,276 students at universities in the Seoul metropolitan area.
said they were sexually experienced.
Foreign ministers of Korea and Japan is going to meet at Pakistan.
˝US emergency teams are searching for bodies a day after a bridge over the Mississippi river collapsed, killing a number of people.
At least four people are confirmed dead with up to 30 missing.
US officials are not linking the collapse to terrorism.
Some 50 vehicles were hurled into the water when part of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, gave way during the rush hour on Wednesday evening.
Minneapolis police chief Tim Dolan said people were still trapped inside vehicles and the recovery effort would take at least three days.
Investigators are treating the area as a crime scene until they determine a cause for the collapse.
US President George W Bush said the federal government must ”respond robustly” to help the people of Minnesota recover and rebuild the bridge as quickly as possible.
Bush will travel to the scene of the collapse on Saturday.
His wife, Laura Bush, will visit Minneapolis on Friday to meet victims of the incident.
The federal Department of Transportation has offered an initial $5m to help with clean-up efforts and transport issues.
Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty called the collapse a ”catastrophe of historic proportions”.
The single early vote opposing former South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon´s election as U.N. secretary-general came from Japan, which later changed its mind to “no opinion,” according to a former U.S. envoy to the United Nations.
John Bolton recounts in his new book, ”Surrender Is Not an Option,” the process leading up to Ban´s eventual election to the top U.N. post and his views of the North Korean nuclear issue.
The former ambassador said he personally suspected that the ”discourage” vote against Ban had come from Japan and persuaded Tokyo´s envoy, Kenzo Oshima, to change his government´s mind.
Ban had suspected Ghana of voting against him after Oshima flatly denied casting the disapproval vote, according to the book.
But Bolton said when he met with Oshima and urged him to reconsider Japan´s ”discourage” vote, he did not deny it.
The top U.S. commander in South Korea said Tuesday he is optimistic about the six-nation talks on denuclearizing North Korea, citing slow but consistent progress.
At the same time, Gen. Burwell Bell said he believes Pyongyang will resist change and will not give up its nuclear weapons without a full security guarantee from the United States.
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Bell, head of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), also argued for a continued American presence on the Korean Peninsula even after a Korean peace treaty is signed, given U.S. economic and security interests in the region.
Bell appeared before the Senate committee as efforts were under way to resuscitate the six-party process, a forum involving South and North Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan, aimed at denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.
The two Koreas agreed in Kaesong yesterday to resume cabinet-level talks in Seoul June 21-24 after a long hiatus but made no progress in defusing nuclear tensions on the peninsula.
A three-point statement after the first inter-Korean talks in 10 months said that, apart from setting dates for full ministerial discussions, they two sides agreed a Cabinet-level delegation headed by Unification Minister Chung Dong-young will go to Pyongyang for a ceremony marking the fifth anniversary June 15 of the historic inter-Korean summit and Seoul will provide 200,000 tons of fertilizer aid to the North.
But the joint press statement by the vice-ministerial delegations on measures to enhance inter-Korean ties failed to mention the nuclear standoff despite persistent calls by the South for the North to end its boycott of the stalled six-party talks.
The Bank of Korea said the report that Bank of Korea is not going to intervene foreign currency markets is not true.
Professor Hwang Woo-suk successfully cloned stem cells from somatic cells of patients.
The ship carrying weapons to Zimbabwe may return to China after being prevented from unloading in South Africa, a communist Chinese official has said.
Zambia´s president has called on other African countries not to let the ship enter their waters, in case the arms escalate post-election tensions.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said the weapons were ordered last year and were ""perfectly normal"".
But she said the ship´s owners were considering bringing the ship back.
Jiang said this was because it was proving impossible for Zimbabwe to receive the arms but this has not been confirmed by the Chinese shipping company.
The Chinese vessel was said to be bound for Angola but the US is reported to be pressuring port authorities there and in Namibia not to allow them to dock.
""I hope this will be the case with all the countries because we don´t want a situation which will escalate the [tension] in Zimbabwe more than what it is.
Police in Egypt have arrested 15 members of the banned opposition Muslim Brotherhood on the eve of a referendum on planned electoral changes.
They were seized for possessing fliers urging a boycott of the referendum.
More than 800 members of the Muslim Brotherhood have been arrested this month for protesting against the vote.
Opposition groups say the proposals allowing multi-candidate elections contain too many constraints for anyone to challenge President Hosni Mubarak.
A TV chat show host said Michael Jackson’s accuser is suspicious of the trial.
the murder retrial of music producer Phil Spector is getting underway.
Opening statement's today in Los Angeles:
“Spector's new trial begins more than a year after a jury failed to reach a verdict on whether he was guilty of second degree murder in shooting death of Lana Clarkson.
Spector is accused of murdering Clarkson in February 2003 at his Alhambra mansion.
Clarkson was working as a hostess at the House of Blues when she met Spector and went home with him.
The defense argued that the 40 year-old Clarkson, despondent over her fading career, killed herself.
The first jury deadlock tended to with the majority favoring conviction.
Weather permitting in Philadelphia, the Phillies and Rays hope to finish off Game 5 of their World Series tonight.
Clarkson was working as a hostess at the House of Blues when she met Spector and went home with him.
The first jury deadlock tended to with the majority favoring conviction.
French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has called for those who sabotaged his country´s high-speed TGV rail network to be punished with “extreme severity”.
Sarkozy asked the justice minister to carry out all necessary inquiries into what the state rail operator, SNCF, called a ”concerted campaign”.
Arsonists burnt tracks and signals, causing delays to services already hit by an eighth day of transport strikes.
Earlier, talks were held to try to end the dispute over economic reforms.
Managers from SNCF and the Paris public transport operator, RATP, held lengthy meetings with union and government representatives in the capital to try to reach a compromise.
There has been no word of a breakthrough, however, and workers are due to vote on Thursday on whether to continue a strike which the government says is costing France hundreds of millions of euros a day.
The government has vowed not to back down in its core proposal to reform the ”special” pension system.
Japanese Nobel Prize laureate Kenzaburo Oe on Monday expressed concerns over his nation's military ambition. ``From late last year, Japan's ruling party has been endeavoring to revise the article nine of the constitution to increase the nation's armament.''
Japanese Nobel Prize laureate Kenzaburo Oe on Monday expressed concerns over his nation's military ambition.
``From late last year, Japan's ruling party has been endeavoring to revise the article nine of the constitution to increase the nation's armament.''
he said in a news conference held at the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, in central Seoul.
There will be a new welfare services plan supporting long term care insurance for senior citizens.
Weathermen forecast up to 300mm more rainfall in the southwestern part of the nation until Monday morning, warning against flood damage in low-lying areas and the coast.˝
˝Typhoon Nari is expected to hit the southeastern region of Milyang and Andong Monday morning before losing power off the East Sea.The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) said Nari pounded the southwestern city of Yeosu, Jeju Island Sunday, grounding more than 130 airplanes and evacuating 3,000 ferries in Jeju.
A total of 13 houses and buildings were inundated and three streets were closed down on the island.
Jeju island had a rainfall of 210mm so far and another 400mm is expected in the region by Monday, the KMA said.
It predicted Nari is likely to hit South Gyeongsang Province and the east coast Monday morning.
Weathermen forecast up to 300mm more rainfall in the southwestern part of the nation until Monday morning, warning against flood damage in low-lying areas and the coast.˝
The Constitutional Court yesterday rejected a petition by Pyeongtaek residents to declare the agreements between South Korea and the United States in 2004 to relocate U.S. military installations unconstitutional.
The U.S. military plans to relocate existing bases in northern Gyeonggi province and in Seoul to the city in southern Gyeonggi province.
The petition was filed by about 1,000 people, most of them Pyeongtaek residents.
It claimed that the move, which they said was agreed to without the concurrence of the National Assembly in violation of the Constitution, would put unreasonable burdens on Korean taxpayers.
The embattled World Bank President, Paul Wolfowitz, has indicated he does not plan to resign over a pay scandal.
He has been under pressure to quit after admitting helping his partner win a promotion and pay raise.
He spoke after World Bank governments described the scandal as a matter of ”great concern” but stopped short of asking him to step down.
The statement from the bank's 24-member policymaking Development Committee came after talks in Washington that were overshadowed by the controversy.
The final decision on Wolfowitz's future will be taken by the bank's board of governors.
The committee's statement said it supported the board's actions in looking into the matter and had asked it to continue its work.
The embattled World Bank President, Paul Wolfowitz, has indicated he does not plan to resign over a pay scandal.
Community service is the order of the day, with the man who will be President of the United States in about 26 hours.
Barack Obama began his morning with a private visit to wounded troops at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington. Next up on this day that honors the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., the President and Vice-President-elect and their wives join volunteers in a community renovation project.
Here's AP White House correspondent Mark Smith:
“The specifics of the project haven't been disclosed, but we're told Michelle Obama and Joe and Jill Biden will also do volunteer work before all of them take part in a service project luncheon.
In recent years, encouraged by the King family, national leaders have promoted such service as the best tribute possible to King's memory.”
Big time blood money at the weekend box office:
The vampire romance opens at number 1 this weekend with more than $70 million.
The new James Bond movie, 'Quantum of Solace,' drops to second.”
“The new Disney animated feature 'Bolt,' opens at number 3 with $27 million this weekend.
Adam Vinatieri booted a 51-yard field goal as time expired.
Brett Favre and the Jets becoming the first time-first team-this season to beat the Titans.
They did it 34-13 to drop Tennessee to 10 in 1.
Big time blood money at the weekend box office:
“'Twilight' is sucking the life out of the competition.
Brett Favre and the Jets becoming the first time-first team-this season to beat the Titans.
North Korea is expected to face further isolation and possible tougher sanctions from the international community as it turned down appeals to join talks on its nuclear and missile programs on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, over the weekend.
The North has demanded the United States lift financial sanctions before it rejoins the six-party talks dealing with Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun did not show up at an informal meeting of 10 nations, including the U.S., South Korea, China and Russia, to discuss its missile and nuclear programs during the Asian security forum on Friday.
It was attended by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the foreign ministers from countries involved in the stalled six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear issue.
The ministerial forum ended without a consensus on the North Korean missile and nuclear issue.
Malaysian Foreign Minister and the ARF session chairman Hamid Albar said in a statement that ”most ministers expressed concern over the missile launches.
” Paek said earlier that his country cannot rejoin the six-party talks on its nuclear program while the U.S. imposes sanctions on the communist state.
The minister even threatened to quit the forum if it adopts a joint statement denouncing the missile tests.
Road crews are busy re-opening highways in the Dakotas and Minnesota after a blizzard left 4-foot-deep snow drifts;
the storm linked to at least 4 deaths.
Wall Street is extending its rally into a second day, with financial stocks padding their own big gains.
And the Dow is up 40 points.
the storm linked to at least 4 deaths.
A neighbor says the murder of Hudson's mother and brother in Chicago makes no sense.
Hard times are causing some New Yorkers to turn in handguns for cash, even some sentimental weapons.
Steve Booth parted with his father's revolver from World War II.”
“At $200 a pop in these hard times, this man says cash was a motivating factor.”
“So I'll buy food with it…”
“Others say guns off the street save lives, comparing the uplift from the drop off, to giving blood.
Chicago authorities are intensifying efforts to find the 7 year-old nephew of Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Hudson.
A neighbor says the murder of Hudson's mother and brother in Chicago makes no sense.
4 Killed as SUV Collides with Car in Tenn.
A division of General Motors is getting some financial help from the Federal Reserve:
“GM's financing arm, GMAC, has been declared a bank-holding company.
It can have access to the $700 billion bailout fund and be eligible for emergency loans from the Fed.
There were warnings that without federal help, the financing company would have had to declare bankruptcy or shut down.
GMAC provides financing for GM dealers and customers; it also offers home mortgages.
More than half of the company shares are also owned by an investment fund that owns Chrysler.
Diane Kepley, Washington.”
Nasty winter weather has made it tough for FedEx to deliver some of its packages. So, FedEx's Carla Boyd says Express station locations will be open for a while today:
“There are 665 stations where customers will be able to come in and get their packages if for some reason they're not delivered.”
The FedEx stations will be open from 8AM to noon local time.
Rival UPS plans to keep its tradition of giving all U.S. employees the holiday off.
“GM's financing arm, GMAC, has been declared a bank-holding company.
“There are 665 stations where customers will be able to come in and get their packages if for some reason they're not delivered.”
U.S. government prosecutors are against bail being set for South Korean lobbyist Tongsun Park.
He is accused of covertly acting on behalf of Saddam Hussein's regime concerning the UN's embattled oil-for-food program.
Park has been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and for acting as an unregistered representative of a foreign government and of laundering money.
U.S. government prosecutors are against bail being set for South Korean lobbyist Tongsun Park.
That hearing is set for today.
Korea’s international education agency under the education ministry reacted positively to foreign English teachers’ move to form a representative association.
National Institute for International Education Development President Rhee Taek-soo said that the agency will have open-minded dialogue with the fledgling Association of Teachers of English in Korea (ATEK).
Rhee sees vigorous communication with foreign teachers as key to the development of English education in Korea.
``We need open minds to communicate with foreign teachers who are from different cultures.
The two groups (Koreans and foreigners) from different backgrounds have to create a new culture through communication,’’ Rhee said in an interview with The Korea Times.
National Institute for International Education Development President Rhee Taek-soo said that the agency will have open-minded dialogue with the fledgling Association of Teachers of English in Korea (ATEK).
Top South Korean officials expressed disappointment with the ambassador’s comments, saying the U.S. should avoid provoking the North while talks over its nuclear weapons programs remain delicately poised.
The U.S. ambassador, who took the post just two months ago, also stirred controversy by describing North Korea as the first government to run a state program of foreign currency counterfeiting since Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
North Korea watchers predicted a stormy response from Pyongyang, similar to the diplomatic furor that followed U.S.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s description of the communist nation as an ``outpost of tyranny.’
’ Prospects for an agreement between North and the U.S. have darkened in recent weeks.
Hundreds of Buddhist monks have marched around Burma´s most revered temple, in a third consecutive day of protests against the military government.
The monks were allowed into the Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon for the first time since their protests began.
They walked through the city surrounded by a human chain of civilians holding hands to protect them.
They want a government apology for the violent break-up of a recent rally, triggered by protests over price rises.
President George W. Bush launched a U.S. drive to create a Palestinian state on Monday, with Israelis and Palestinians nearing an agreement to address the toughest issues of their decades-old conflict.
Bush began three intense days of Middle East diplomacy in separate Oval Office meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
The talks could jumpstart a long-dormant peace process, but no one predicts a swift breakthrough in a conflict that has outlasted many a U.S. president and Middle Eastern leader.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, putting her credibility on the line, assembled representatives from more than 40 countries, many driven by a desire to prevent Iran from becoming a dominant
The talks could jumpstart a long-dormant peace process, but no one predicts a swift breakthrough in a conflict that has outlasted many a U.S. president and Middle Eastern leader.
More than 100 people have been killed in Iraq in apparent revenge attacks after the bombing of a key Shiite shrine.
Scores of bullet-riddled bodies have been found in Baghdad, while in the bloodiest attack 47 factory workers were killed near the capital.
President Jalal Talabani called an emergency summit of Iraq's political leaders to discuss the violence.
Sunni Arab politicians boycotted the meeting and pulled out of coalition talks in protest at reprisal attacks.
""We are suspending our participation in negotiations on the government with the Shiite Alliance,"" said Tareq al-Hashimi, a top official from the Iraqi Accord Front, Iraq's main Sunni Arab alliance.
The Iraqi government has announced a daytime curfew in Baghdad and the surrounding provinces for most of Friday - in a bid to help maintain order around the period of prayers.
Scores of bullet-riddled bodies have been found in Baghdad, while in the bloodiest attack 47 factory workers were killed near the capital.
President Jalal Talabani called an emergency summit of Iraq's political leaders to discuss the violence.
What's in it for you?
If you're not a business person desperate for access to cash, what does it mean that the Federal Reserve this morning made an emergency half-point cut in a key interest rate?
“If you have a variable rate credit card why, you might benefit if the rate stays low for long enough, and if you have a variable rate mortgage tied to the right kinds of market indicators, why, you might get some benefit there, too…”
William Dunkelberg is chief economist for the National Federation of Independent Business.